


Lighting Up the Dark

by Velorien



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, rational
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-03 22:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 168,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16334321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velorien/pseuds/Velorien
Summary: Twelve years ago, the Fourth Hokage gave his life to seal Kyubey, the Nine-Brained Demon Fox, into the infant Naruto. Now, the time has come for a smarter, more creative Naruto to take on a world in which quick thinking and a solid grasp of strategy are worth a dozen rare techniques, and a brilliant mind can challenge even the deepest darkness.Inspired by an omake in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.





	1. Chapter 1

“There you are, Naruto.”

Mizuki struck an effortlessly elegant pose as he looked down at the oblivious fool from the tallest tree bordering the clearing.

“I see you managed to steal the Hokage’s scroll of forbidden techniques. Impressive work. Now hand it over to me, and we can move on to your… graduation.” 

Naruto grinned. “Sure. I was just about done with it anyway.” 

Mizuki suppressed a sneer. The brat had obviously given it his all—the grass was barely visible beneath a carpet of discarded shuriken, kunai, scrolls and other training paraphernalia. But given the dropout—less than a genin—could barely conjure up a clone on a good day, pigs would fly before he mastered even the simplest forbidden technique. 

“Don't do it, Naruto!” 

Mizuki cursed his invariably rotten luck as he recognised Iruka's voice even before the man came into sight. 

Naruto spun to face Iruka. “But I've just finished that secret second way of graduating Mizuki-sensei told me about. What am I supposed to do with the scroll now, keep it?” 

“Second way of graduating?!” Iruka's eyes, wide with horrified realisation, flickered to Mizuki, then back to Naruto. “Mizuki's lying to you! There's no such thing! No loyal shinobi would ever ask you to steal from the Hokage. Naruto, no matter what you do, don't give him the scroll!” 

Mizuki could feel control of the situation slipping through his fingers. Fortunately, a fine strategist like him could adapt to handle any setback. Time for Plan B: kill them all and come up with a plausible story afterwards. He reached for the enormous Fūma shuriken strapped to his back.

Before he could touch it, yet another figure burst into the clearing.

“Mizuki, you get the scroll! I'll go signal our allies!”

Mizuki having allies was news to him more than anyone.

He opened his mouth, but the man in a chūnin jacket—whom he had never seen before in his life—was already gone.

“Quick, Iruka-sensei, you have to stop him!” Naruto shouted. “Go! I'll keep the scroll away from Mizuki-sensei!”

But Iruka was rooted to the spot. “You're my student, Naruto, and I can't leave you in danger.”

“Please just go! I can buy some time here—you of all people know how hard I am to catch! But if he gets backup, they'll kill us both and take the scroll anyway!”

Iruka stood there like the indecisive fool he was.

“Please, Iruka-sensei.” Naruto's voice turned uncharacteristically serious. “I know what your instincts must be telling you. But if you've ever trusted me as one of your students, please trust me now.”

Iruka said a few words under his breath that even Mizuki wasn’t prepared to use in front of young Academy trainees. “Be careful, Naruto.”

As soon as their little soap opera was over and Iruka was out of the way, it was time for Mizuki to take centre stage again.

“Well, that was interesting,” he drawled. “You sent him chasing after a clone under the Transformation Technique, didn't you? Are you really so arrogant you think you can take me on your own?”

Naruto _nodded_.

“That and there was something I wanted to ask you one-on-one.”

“Oh?”

“You're the one who framed me for cheating in the written test, aren’t you? Even though I pulled off all the ninjutsu, I got disqualified because someone saw 'me' reading the test papers in the teachers' lounge. That must have been you, but why?”

“Oh, so you figured it out,” Mizuki said indifferently. “I was always going to throw one of the failed students at the scroll’s defences and see if I got lucky. But then I was struck by this brilliant idea for how to screw you over at the same time. And you fell for it like a complete sucker.”

“But why _me_? I know this is probably part of some big plot to betray the village, but that doesn’t mean it has to get personal. What did _I_ ever do to you?”

Mizuki laughed. “Oh, this is rich. I suppose I may as well tell you before you die.”

“Tell me what?”

Mizuki leaned forward. “They've all been lying to you, Naruto. For your entire life. Lying about what you are and what you've done.”

He raised his voice dramatically. “You're not human. You're a monster. You're Kyubey, the Nine-Brained Demon Fox that attacked Leaf Village twelve years ago!”

Naruto shrugged. “Yeah, I know.”

“What.”

“It doesn't take a genius to figure out. The Nine-Brained Demon Fox attacks the village around my birthday. Then it disappears, and nobody talks about what happened to it. Not ‘The Fourth Hokage killed it’. Not ‘The Fourth Hokage drove it away’. He does something heroic to it, and it's gone. And then everyone in the village hates me, _really_ hates me, for as long as I can remember, and they never ever say why.”

“Oh, come _on_.” Mizuki couldn’t decide whether he was more bewildered or outraged by the words coming out of Naruto’s mouth. “There's no way you could work it out from just that!”

“Well, after I made that connection, I did some digging through the registers in the Civic Library. You'd be amazed how little attention people pay you if you show them a few ryō and tell them an overworked jōnin paid you to spend the day looking up boring facts for him. So did you know that back then, there was exactly one other person in Leaf Village called Uzumaki? And that she died on the Night of Tragedy? And that she was the host for the Nine-Brains at the time?”

Mizuki did his best to replace his jaw. “Uh... well, that's why,” he concluded, more lamely than intended. “No one was going to take the Demon Fox's word over mine, not if you said you’d been framed for cheating, and not if you tried to spill the beans about me and the scroll. It's perfect. That, and you just piss me off.”

“Fair enough,” Naruto accepted the explanation with eerie stoicism. “Now what?”

“Now... you die!” Mizuki finally grabbed the Fūma shuriken from his back, and hurled it full-strength at Naruto.

Predictably, the incompetent brat failed to dodge. Less predictably, he didn’t try. He sat motionless, watching with interest as the huge blade flew right at his head. He vanished as it made contact.

“Oh, for fuck's sake!” Mizuki snapped. “I've been talking to a clone?”

But much though he wanted to find the little twerp and give him a taste of hell, Mizuki was a pro who always kept his eyes on the prize. He jumped down to ground level and began to make his way towards the scroll, taking care not to cut himself on the battlefield’s worth of ninja tools littering the clearing.

“Let's play a game,” said a new Naruto, appearing next to the scroll in a lazy lounging pose.

Mizuki gave him a condescending look. “Trying to buy time? Don't bother. I'm taking the scroll, and then I'll have all the time in the world to find you and gut you.”

The arrogant fool ignored him. “Round One is called _Let's Guess Which Lethal Forbidden Technique Naruto Learned Today._ ”

Mizuki stopped. The idea was ridiculous, but…

“If you win, you get to advance to Round Two. If you lose… you die.”

There was a soft popping sound, and then something flashed in Mizuki's peripheral vision. He whirled around to see a kunai coming at him fast.

But he wasn't a chūnin for nothing. His own kunai was up within a fraction of a second.

The two touched... and then the attacking blade disappeared in a puff of smoke.

“You almost had me going for a second, you little monster.” Mizuki started to turn back towards Naruto, then reflexively moved to block a second kunai. This one came from the edge of his vision as well, but Mizuki deflected it with contemptuous ease.

“This has to be the feeblest delaying tactic I’ve seen in my life. So some of this trash on the ground is clones in disguise. So they transform back and throw kunai at me when I'm not looking. What are they going to do, _annoy_ me to death?”

Mizuki didn't even bother stopping the third kunai. Then it drew a sharp line of pain across his cheek.

“What?!”

He shifted into defensive stance. He didn’t know what Naruto’s game was, but the dropout was about to find out there was a gap of skill between them that he could never hope to overcome.

A fourth kunai exploded into clone mist on touching Mizuki’s guard.

A fifth bounced off. That one was from the real Naruto… or so Mizuki thought until he saw it vanish as it hit the ground. Wait… what?

“Shadow clones?!” he screamed. “How the hell can _you_ make shadow clones?!”

The brat gave him the thumbs-up. “All right! You pass Round One. Now it's time for Round Two, the ever-popular _Find and Destroy All the Shadow Clones Before Iruka-sensei Comes Back and Kicks Your Ass_ round!”

Discarding his instincts as a teacher, Mizuki spat his foulest curses at the little brat.

“Thanks,” Naruto said off-handedly. “I’ll look those up afterwards.

“Anyway, Round Two. If you win, you get to take the scroll and escape. If you lose, or if you try to grab the scroll and run while you’re still surrounded by shadow clones… you die.”

Tension was spreading through Mizuki’s muscles, as if he was in a real combat situation and not facing the most pathetic twelve-year-old in the village.

“You're bluffing,” he insisted. “So you've got four or five shadow clones hidden in this clearing. They're still clones of an incompetent dropout, and I'm practically a jōnin. What do you think they can do to me?”

Naruto cracked up with laughter. “Four or five? Oh, that's good. Oh, man, you really know how to tell 'em, Mizuki-sensei.”

“Wh-What's so funny?”

“You said it yourself: I'm the Nine-Brained Demon Fox. And what's the Nine-Brained Demon Fox famous for, apart from its amazing intelligence and devilish good looks?”

Mizuki was starting to sweat. Somewhere along the line he’d forgotten what it _meant_ that Naruto was a village-destroying monster.

“What?”

“Its incredible chakra control, duh. I can sit here making shadow clones all day long with the amount of chakra you'd need just to scratch your nose.

“Now, let's get on with the game. I've got a bet going with Naruto Prime on how many wounds you're going to take before Iruka-sensei comes back and finishes you off.”

Mizuki made to reply, but a flying kunai cut him off. It was a clone. The next one wasn’t. Nor the next.

Blades came at Mizuki from every direction. Always from outside his line of sight, so he had to spin on the spot. His movements grew frantic. The kunai struck faster and faster. Shadow kunai. Harmless kunai. There was no pattern. His breath came in short bursts. The clones exploded into fog that obscured his vision. He wanted to fight back. He wanted to run. He had to keep blocking.

-o-

Mizuki lay whimpering on the ground, too tired and traumatised to move, and bleeding from dozens of small cuts.

“Looks like you’re done,” Naruto said cheerfully. “Guess I can stop leading Iruka-sensei on a wild goose chase now.”

There was a pop, and the forbidden technique scroll transformed into the original Naruto.

“Nice job.”

“I know, right?” the clone said modestly. “I win the real bet, though. It took _minutes_ before he went down.”

“Yeah, yeah. We should clean up—Iruka-sensei's gonna be here any second.”

Naruto snapped his fingers and the entire clearing was covered in mist. When it faded a second later, all of the litter was gone, as was the bet-winning clone. Naruto walked past the trees at the edge of the clearing, reached into a hollow under some roots, and pulled out the real scroll. As an afterthought, he also dug the Fūma shuriken out of the ground and tossed it next to Mizuki's semi-comatose form.

“Oh, by the way...” he whispered in Mizuki's ear. “You were right. There were only five shadow clones.”

Mizuki groaned.

Iruka-sensei made his appearance a couple of minutes later, moisture gathering in his eyes as he saw Naruto alive and unharmed.

“You’re all right! Oh, thank goodness you’re all right! I was so scared…”

Naruto felt a flash of guilt. But he reminded himself that the whole thing had been for Iruka-sensei’s own protection. At least aside from the part where he wanted to test his exciting new technique. And the part where he wanted revenge on a bastard who'd been one smart choice away from murdering some random classmate of Naruto’s.

Iruka-sensei stared at Mizuki, who was lying in the foetal position snivelling, “No more... please, no more...”

“What the heck happened, Naruto?!”

“He tried to throw his giant shuriken thing at me, but forgot to let go,” Naruto said matter-of-factly. “After he got over the pain of stabbing himself with all the corners, he had a nervous breakdown over what a miserable failure of a ninja he was. That made him collapse on top of the shuriken, which is how he got all those other injuries.”

“Uh-huh,” Iruka-sensei said. “And what really happened?”

“Fine,” Naruto pouted. “I outsmarted him and took him out with an A-rank forbidden technique I’d learned from the scroll in the couple of hours before he turned up.”

Iruka-sensei stared fixedly at Naruto for several seconds.

“Nervous breakdown over being a miserable failure of a ninja. Got it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Demon Fox’s name and nature are among this work’s primary departure points. Please don’t message me to tell me I’ve got them wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

Naruto was in a great mood: the official photographer had told him he'd never taken such an outrageous ninja registration photo in his forty years of work. Naruto had taken inspiration from a picture he'd seen on the back of a book of some weirdo named Jiraiya, then liberally added details from all his favourite manga, until the final product could be guaranteed to instil nightmares, bed-wetting and permanent psychological trauma in anyone under the age of seven. Judging by the reactions he'd got on his way home (after the Hokage had caught him and told him to go wash it off, but failed to specify where or when), it was also capable of paralysing full-grown men for up to five seconds. His face was now a ninja weapon all by itself.

Nevertheless, he knew from long experience exactly how far the old man's patience could be stretched, so he did wash the face paint off before meeting up with Sasuke and Sakura to go see their new team leader.

“Hey, Sakura, feel like going for a date to celebrate our graduation?”

“Get bent, Naruto,” Sakura snapped, which told him she was in a good mood.

Sasuke ignored both of them and studied the clouds overhead. Business as usual.

“I still can't believe I’m stuck in the same squad as you,” Sakura groused. “Didn't you get disqualified for cheating? How could you graduate when you got disqualified from the exam?”

“Oh, I stole the Hokage's secret scroll of forbidden techniques, and then beat up Mizuki-sensei. They couldn't _not_ let me graduate after that,” Naruto said nonchalantly.

Sasuke turned around as if becoming aware of Naruto’s existence for the first time. “Couldn't you invent something better, imbecile?”

“Like it or not, it's the truth, greaseball,” Naruto boasted, shortly before feeling Sakura's wrathful fist descend right on top of his head.

“Ow! What was that for?!”

“For making up stupid lies,” Sakura said in the voice of a judge delivering a final sentence with no right of appeal. “Now come on, our new leader might get mad if we're late.”

Happily, the leader wasn't mad, largely because he wasn’t even there. The rooftop designated as their meeting point was utterly devoid of any sign of life.

“Figures,” Naruto griped. “Knew I should have bought some manga on the way. I'd just finished saving up for the next issue of _Ikazuchi Saga_ , too.”

Sasuke pointedly rolled his eyes. “Another one of your loser comics?”

“You got a problem with that?”

“What if I do? What are you going to do about it?”

No greater excuse was necessary. “How about this!”

-o-

Kakashi watched from the shadows as two of his potential new subordinates became lost in a chaotic ball of violence within seconds of arriving at the rendezvous point. The third, after a token effort at separating them which did not involve coming within arm’s reach, settled down on a railing, pulled out a hand mirror and began adjusting her hair.

Tomorrow was going to be the shortest final exam in Leaf history.

“Typical,” the pink-haired girl muttered, “just my luck to be in a squad where even the captain is some lazy moron who can't be arsed to show up to his own... gaah!”

“I'm sorry, were you saying something?” Kakashi chose that moment to appear in front of her out of nowhere.

“Uhh... no. Definitely not. You must have misheard. Sir.”

The commotion across the rooftop finally ceased, with the Uchiha now missing his forehead protector, but gripping his opponent, _that_ boy, in a solid headlock. The two were eyeing Kakashi warily, frozen mid-struggle.

“So,” Kakashi continued, unfazed, “let's begin the self-introductions. My name is Hatake Kakashi, and I am a Leaf jōnin. I have no intention of telling you my hobbies, my dreams or anything else about myself.”

This was met with a stony silence, but the boys did at least separate and adjust their dishevelled clothing.

“You with the atrocious orange outfit, you can go next.”

“My name is Uzumaki Naruto!” the boy boasted, feet wide and hands on hips. “I like ramen, Sakura and manga with cool fight scenes. I hate Sasuke, high prices, spoilers and Sasuke. My hobbies are reading manga, playing pranks and thinking of new ways to play pranks. And my dream... is to become the world's greatest ramen chef!”

Kakashi briefly found himself lost for words. He hoped his silence came across as typical jōnin inscrutability rather than confusion.

“Did you say ‘ramen chef’?”

“Sure! I'm going to develop my own secret style of ramen, travel the world, and challenge and defeat the best ramen chef in each country in a no-holds-barred cooking showdown. Then I'll open a ramen dojo and grow a long white beard and make people call me Grandmaster Naruto. Oh, and I'll get badass tattoos, 'cause what's the point of the grandmaster gig if you can't have badass tattoos?”

“Oooh-kaaay... next.”

“My name is Haruno Sakura. I like... um... well... I like...” Sakura squirmed while glancing meaningfully at the boy to her side.

Would the high pay and manifold perks of being a jōnin squad leader really make up for having to spend this much time around an adolescent girl?

On reflection, yes. Barely.

“I hate Naruto,” Sakura added in a burst of certainty. “As for my dream, I... um... it's...” She blushed and began to mumble something incoherently romantic.

There was only so much of this Kakashi could put up with. “Next!”

“My name is Uchiha Sasuke,” the black-haired boy said with what could have been ominous significance were it not delivered in a twelve-year-old’s unbroken voice. He paused as if waiting for a reaction. Kakashi, naturally, gave him nothing.

“There are few things that I like, and many things that I hate,” Sasuke pressed on in the same tone. “I have no dreams, but there are two things I will achieve without fail. I will revive my clan... and I will defeat a certain man.”

It should have been nothing more than a child’s posturing, effortless to brush off, but those last few words carried a bloodlust worthy of the battlefield. Kakashi could see Naruto give Sasuke an intent, narrow-eyed look that seemed odd coming from the boisterous boy, while Sakura was close to swooning.

At last, the truth dawned on Kakashi. This was all a horrible nightmare, a fever dream brought on by overwork. Or more likely still, it was a genjutsu prank from someone with a particularly twisted sense of humour. Yes, all he had to do was use his Sharingan, and this entire situation would instantly go away.

“Kakashi-sensei? Kakashi-sensei?”

Kakashi reluctantly forced himself to face reality.

“Moving on,” he said as much to himself as to the three children, “there is something you haven't been told yet. There's one exam left before you can become genin. Only the very best of you will pass. It's also possible that all of you will fail, and _no one_ will become genin. I don’t intend to sugarcoat it for you: this final exam is _hard_.”

“What?!” Naruto exclaimed. “What do you mean, there's another exam? Then what did I beat Mizuki-sensei up for?!”

“Good job on that, by the way. The smug little snake had it coming.”

Sasuke and Sakura's jaws dropped.

Kakashi went on as if he hadn't been interrupted. “In answer to your question, the graduation exam proved that you had the basic skills and competencies needed to become genin. The _final_ exam tests whether you are ready to be one. Genin go on difficult, dangerous missions, many with a risk of death. We'd rather send you back to the Academy—as many times as it takes—than let you throw your life away, as you definitely will if you're not prepared.”

“Meet me at 5 a.m. tomorrow at the Training Grounds. Bring whatever equipment you like—within reason—because you won't be able to leave once we start.”

Naruto livened up. “Kakashi-sensei, Kakashi-sensei, what does 'within reason' mean?”

Kakashi felt a sharp sense of impending doom.

“It means you can only bring things you'd expect to be able to bring on a normal mission. There's a list of objects which are forbidden outright, such as rare chemicals or siege weaponry, plus the examiner has final say over what you can use.”

Naruto nodded with a thoughtful expression Kakashi didn’t like at all. The sooner the test was over and this trio failed as they inevitably would, the better.

“Dismissed!”

-o-

“I see you all made it. Let's get started!” Kakashi-sensei announced upon his arrival at 6:23 a.m., cheerfully ignoring both the yawns and the death-promising glares.

“Here is how this works. I have here two bells. To pass, you have to get one of these bells by noon. Anyone who doesn't have a bell come noon will fail and be sent back to the Academy. Any questions?”

Sakura raised her hand. “Why are there only two bells when there are three of us, Kakashi-sensei?”

“Because one of you will fail and be sent back to the Academy,” Kakashi-sensei said simply. “Make sure it's not you.

“Now, if there's nothing else, I'm going to go over there and read my book. Come at me whenever you're ready.”

Huh. Discovering fiendish traps concealed in seemingly ordinary tests was routine for Naruto, but never before had the trap been designed to catch _everyone_ rather than only him. His original plan, after a night of intense preparation, had been to apply his unique pranking expertise to the challenge. He would make creative use of “reasonable” equipment to overwhelm an unsuspecting Kakashi-sensei, while ensuring that the other two got caught in the crossfire because it would make the whole thing so much more entertaining. But if the trap was what he thought it was… it was time to rethink his strategy from the ground up.

Once Kakashi-sensei was safely out of hearing range, Naruto beckoned the other two into a conspiratory huddle. “There’s something I don’t get.”

“What’s that?” Sasuke narrowed his eyes.

Naruto told them about a conversation he'd had with Iruka-sensei the previous year.

-o-

“Iruka-sensei, Iruka-sensei, I have a question!”

The lesson was over, and usually Naruto was gone by the time the end-of-class bell (or, on occasion, something that might plausibly be misheard for the end-of-class bell) finished ringing. Iruka almost suspected an incoming prank, but if by some miracle Naruto was expressing _academic curiosity_...

“What is it, Naruto?”

“How come there are always three people to a genin team?” Naruto asked with his usual expression of optimistic confusion. “Why isn't it two, or five, or nine? Yeah, nine would be great! You could get missions done four times as fast!”

It was no surprise that Naruto was starting to wonder about team composition. With their graduation on the horizon, many of the children in his class were speculating about their future teams. Not a day went by without boys fighting over who deserved to be chosen by the top jōnin instructors, and girls performing age-old “charms” to make sure they ended up with their best friend or the boy they liked.

And yet in his ignorance, Naruto had ended up asking a question none of his peers ever did, a question that hadn’t occurred to Iruka himself until his first time working on team assignments as an instructor.

“The reason we have small teams is simple. Our village survives by getting money from doing missions,” he explained, “and that means we want as many teams successfully doing missions as possible. You wouldn’t want to send six ninja on a mission three could do when you could split them up and get money for two missions instead. With me so far?”

Naruto nodded uncertainly, which Iruka knew from experience was the best he was going to get. “But why three?”

“Well, you see, Naruto, ninja have known for a long time that three's the minimum number you need to make an effective ninja team when you can’t count on any given member having more than one well-developed skill. For example—”

“Wait, I don't get it.”

Fortunately, Iruka was an old hand at dealing with children like Naruto (probably because he lacked seniority and so tended to be fobbed off with the “problem cases”). When a student didn’t understand something you thought was simple, it was time to try an indirect approach.

“Well, you play those role-playing video games on your TV, right?” At least Iruka thought that was how it worked, never having owned a TV or played a video game. Mizuki kept mocking him for being “out of touch with the youth of today”, but there were only so many hours in the day, and only so many ryō in a junior teacher’s wallet.

“Um.” Naruto gave Iruka a helpless look. “I’ve never had any high tech-lonogy. But I've played video games at Kiba’s house before.”

Iruka mentally kicked himself for his insensitivity. Yes, many of Naruto's classmates, some of them from Leaf's wealthiest ninja clans, would have access to such luxuries. But Naruto himself was living on the Hokage's Orphans' Fund allowance, and Iruka knew from his own experience how pitiful that was after it got split among the countless orphans of the Night of Tragedy.

“Sorry, I forgot,” he said awkwardly. He racked his brains to recall what kids like Kiba talked about in the playground. “Look at it like this. Your warrior monk can beat up tough monsters with his staff, but he can’t reach anything that flies. Your archer can shoot down flying enemies, but his arrows go right through evil spirits. And your sorcerer can purify evil spirits, but he’s frail and has to run away from tough monsters. None of them can do very much on their own, but when you put them together, you have a team that defeat any enemy. Does that make sense?”

“Hey, it does!” Naruto exclaimed as if astounded at his own understanding.

“It's the same for ninja. For example, one of the so-called ideal formations is having a taijutsu user up front, a powerful but vulnerable mid-range ninjutsu user in the middle, and a flexible long-range ninjutsu user at the back. The taijutsu user keeps enemies busy and stops them going after the others. The mid-range ninjutsu user takes out tough enemies without getting put in danger himself. And the long-range ninjutsu user keeps an eye on the battlefield, using his abilities to stop anyone catching his allies by surprise, and coming in to help whenever someone's in trouble.”

No, that was too complicated. A brighter student would recognise whom Iruka was talking about at once, but Naruto, on the opposite end of the spectrum, required more careful handling. Iruka was about to start looking for a different example when he realised that, to his surprise, Naruto was nodding along with a serious look on his face.

“There are lots of different combinations, all designed so you get a balanced team that can take on any challenge—even if they’re all genin who can’t do much on their own. But you need three. Two won't cut it, and if you have many more than that, it's better to split them into separate teams for flexibility.”

“So that’s it. Thanks, Iruka-sensei! Hey, are we still on for ramen tonight?”

Iruka smiled. “Well, you did manage to scrape a pass on the test like you promised, so I guess I'd better hold up my end of the bargain.”

-o-

“So if Iruka-sensei’s right, a genin team has to have three people no matter what. What’s going to happen when Kakashi-sensei fails one of us and ends up with two genin?” Naruto asked, face screwed up like he was trying to balance multidimensional equations for a space-time ninjutsu.

The three genin candidates looked at each other.

“I see it now,” Sasuke said in a low, intense voice. “Only having two bells means we have to fight over them instead of working as a team. It’s all part of his plan. He's not trying to pick two out of three—he’s trying to set us against each other!”

Sakura’s eyes widened. “Oh, that makes sense! You're so smart, Sasuke!”

“So what do we do?” Naruto asked.

“If we want to win, we have to combine forces, because it’ll be the last thing he expects,” Sasuke said. “I looked him up in the public records yesterday. He's failed every single genin team he tested. He must have manipulated them like he’s trying to do to us, and then failed all three for lack of teamwork!”

“But we can't charge in headfirst,” Sakura added, clearly keen to make a contribution. “I asked my parents about him. They say he's the famous Copy Ninja. He knows a thousand different techniques and he was a hero of the Third Great Ninja War. If we try to fight him as if this was a normal combat test, he'll wipe the floor with us.”

A heavy, pessimistic silence settled over the area.

After giving it a little time, Naruto spoke up. “Hey, I've just remembered, there was a scene a lot like this one in chapter twenty-seven of _Ikazuchi Saga_! Saga and his two friends are facing the Dark Flame Master, and he's got these Orbs of Horror that make him immune to Saga's Judgement Thunder. So what they do is this...”

His explanation was a tour de force worthy of Uzumaki Naruto himself, as he waved his arms wildly to indicate different tactics, mimed special moves and struck a variety of dramatic poses, and finally even pulled out some paper and started drawing diagrams.

“It’s the most absurdly crazy plan I've heard in my entire life,” Sasuke commented when Naruto was done. “But that might be exactly what we need. No sane person will ever see _this_ coming. I need a minute to fix all your mistakes, and then it’ll be time to teach Kakashi-sensei not to underestimate us.”

“What mistakes?” Naruto asked petulantly, while inwardly thanking the Sage of Six Paths that Sasuke had spotted them. Sasuke _was_ pretty smart, even if Naruto would eternally foreswear ramen before he admitted it out loud, and even Sakura had her moments, and Naruto had been counting on this when he came up with his plan. Any strategy coming from him needed to be full of holes so as not to arouse suspicion, but at the same time it would be a disaster if they ended up being overlooked.

_Some discussion later..._

“Oh, wait!” Naruto exclaimed. “I'm so dumb! This plan won't work—we don't have anything like Miki's Gates of the Void technique to let us swap places with nearby objects!”

Sakura sneered. “You really are a moron, Naruto. We can use the Substitution Technique for that. I'm actually pretty good at it.”

“Oh. Then I guess we're good to go. Can I be Saga?”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Of course you're Saga. It's obvious from the plan who gets what role. You're Saga, the loudmouth hero, Sakura's Miki, the kunoichi full of hidden tricks, and I'm Ogun, the mysterious sage who always saves your ass.”

Naruto gave Sasuke a funny look. “I thought you didn't read manga because it was for losers.”

“I don't. Shut up.”

-o-

“Your reign of terror is over, Kakashi-sensei! Feel the lightning fist of justice!”

Without looking up from his book, Kakashi deflected Naruto's punch with his free left hand. Then the kick. Then the three-punch combo, followed by a low leg sweep. Hmm, this was getting interesting. Osamu had just proposed to Izuna, not realising that Izuna was really Eri in disguise. What was Eri going to do, knowing that Kanagiri the butler was due to come home any minute?

There was a glint of light from the edge of Kakashi's vision. In one smooth movement, he noted the page, closed his book, put it down on the grass next to him, drew a kunai and moved to block the shuriken coming at him.

However, the shuriken was a clone, and disappeared into smoke on meeting his defence. At the same time, Naruto redoubled his attack. His attempts to take advantage of Kakashi's distraction still weren't enough to require more than one hand.

Kakashi glanced up. Sakura was running towards him. It was an underwhelming attempt at deception—there was no one else who could have thrown a shuriken from that angle, so if the shuriken was a clone, Sakura was as well. Kakashi reached for his book...

“Substitution Technique!”

With a poof, Sakura—not a clone—replaced his beloved signed first edition volume of _Makeout Paradise_. But this was not Kakashi's main concern. His main concern was that his hand, instead of holding the book, was now resting solidly on a supine Sakura's chest.

“Kyaaa! Kakashi-sensei, you pervert!” Sakura shrieked.

Kakashi jerked his hand back. He could already see the headlines.

RESPECTED JŌNIN CAUGHT MOLESTING UNDERAGE GENIN GIRL DURING EXAM

LEAF NINJA SEX CRIME TRIAL: “ACCUSED REGULARLY READ PORN IN FRONT OF KIDS”

WORKS OF PERVERT-INSPIRING WRITER JIRAIYA BANNED IN ELEMENTAL NATIONS AFTER “NUMBER ONE FAN” LEAF NINJA JAILED FOR CHILD MOLESTATION

He was snapped out of his panic by the sudden sensation of hostile intent on a scale he hadn't felt since the war. Naruto had transformed into several _hundred_ shadow clones, all with kunai in their hands and flames of the purest homicidal fury in their eyes.

“Don't you dare touch Sakura, you bastard!”

The clones dove at him from every direction—left, front, back, even above. Their numbers blocked out the sunlight, and Kakashi calculated his options with lightning speed. Should he go full-on taijutsu and try to eradicate the clones before they overwhelmed him with sheer mass, or should he dodge through the remaining opening, on his right, and pop them with shuriken once he'd moved out of strike range? He'd decided at the start of the test that he wouldn't let mere Academy graduates push him into using ninjutsu.

However, at that moment...

“Fire Element: Great Fireball Technique!”

The mass of superheated chakra zoomed towards him from the only open direction. If he stayed to destroy the clones, he’d be incinerated. If he moved, he’d be incinerated faster.

Kakashi gave an inward sigh of resignation, changed plans, and began to form seals faster than the eye could see.

That was when Sakura reached out and grabbed the bells off his waist.

“Substitution Technique!”

“Earth Element: Subterranean Escape Technique!”

When the smoke of three hundred clones simultaneously popping cleared away, all that remained was the charred remnant of a log.

-o-

“Well, gentlemen, it was an impressive effort,” Kakashi-sensei said, looking across the field at Naruto and Sasuke. Sakura, tied and gagged at his feet, had her right hand closed in a death grip.

“But Sakura has both bells, and I have Sakura. It seems that either way, you two lose.”

“Not so fast!” Sasuke retorted. “You may have a hostage, but we have something you value even more.” He held up Kakashi-sensei's book. “Give us Sakura and the bells, and you can have your book back. Otherwise...” he smiled, “I feel another Fire Element technique coming on.”

Kakashi-sensei raised his visible eyebrow. “Well, now. A magnificently underhanded move. You might have ninja potential yet. But the battlefield isn't a supermarket—you don't get two-for-one deals here. If you want Sakura in exchange for the book, you can have her—but I keep the bells. Maybe I'll give you another chance to get them, but you won't be able to catch me off guard again.

“Or I could offer you a deal.” Kakashi-sensei looked them in the eye, one after the other. “You take the bells, and I keep Sakura. She's a prisoner of war, and since she's the one who got herself caught, she's not your responsibility. With those two bells, there's enough for both of you to pass. Sakura will go back to the Academy, and everyone will live happily ever after. What do you say?”

He looked down at Sakura. Her eyes glistened with tears. She looked at Sasuke and Naruto, seemed to come to a decision, and then slowly, very slowly, she opened up her hand to let Kakashi-sensei take the bells.

“Hold it!” Naruto made a cutting gesture. “You can keep your bells. Give us Sakura. No matter what he's up against, Uzumaki Naruto doesn't abandon his friends! That's my way of the ninja!”

“Is that your final answer?”

Sasuke nodded gravely. “The three of us stole those bells from you before, and we'll steal them from you again. We're swapping the book for Sakura... and then you're going down.”

Kakashi-sensei gave them a look of severe disapproval. “Well, that was your one chance to make the right decision. And I'm afraid to say that all three of you...

“...pass!”

-o-

“In the shinobi world, those who don't obey the rules are trash,” Kakashi told them back at the entrance to the Training Grounds. “But those who abandon their teammates are even worse than trash. You showed excellent teamwork back there, and more importantly, you showed loyalty. Starting tomorrow, you will be Team Seven under my leadership.”

“Yay!”

“All right!”

Even Sasuke was unsuccessfully trying to hide a smile.

Kakashi felt like smiling too. How many would-be genin had he watched turn on each other the instant their bonds were tested? He would not in a thousand years have expected _these_ three to be the ones to break his streak, but in a crisis situation they’d set aside their obvious differences and presented a united front. Not only had they combined their strengths and covered each other’s weaknesses, but all three of them had sacrificed certain victory in order to save their comrades. That mutual trust and strong resolve would keep them alive through the hell of the shinobi world. And what a team like this might mean for Kakashi himself…

“So clear up some things for me,” Kakashi said, refocusing on the present. “Where did the clone shuriken come from?”

“I hid a clone in the bushes,” Sakura explained, “and had her throw a shuriken past me as I ran forwards so it looked like I was throwing it.”

“And the log?”

“That was me,” Sasuke said. “I brought it in range of Sakura while you were busy freaking out about groping her.”

“Ah.” Kakashi hesitated. “I now realise that it was an ingenious stratagem on your part in order to throw me off balance, so would you mind never mentioning it again? To anyone?”

The chorus of agreement was a little too quick for Kakashi's comfort. He made a note to himself to get blackmail material on the three as quickly as possible—for his own protection.

“And Naruto, three hundred shadow clones? What possessed you to spend so much chakra? You could have died.”

“Don't be silly, Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto laughed. “After the first couple of rows, those were all normal clones. Even then, I only summoned that many because they were meant to last a few seconds and then I’d get the chakra back.”

Kakashi shook his head. “You three are full of surprises.”

The aloof Uchiha prodigy, the moronic yet indomitable pariah, and an ordinary girl who somehow stood in the space between them without being overwhelmed. How had the Third Hokage foreseen that this improbable combination would lead to triumph and not disaster?

“I have to go and fill out genin team paperwork,” Kakashi told the three. “I'll be in touch tomorrow with your first mission.”

-o-

As soon as he was gone, Naruto turned to Sakura. “That was amazing acting back there, Sakura. I can't believe you were able to cry on command.”

Sasuke nodded in agreement.

Sakura blushed. “Thanks. You guys were good too. Or Sasuke was, anyway. Naruto, you were totally overdoing it. ‘Uzumaki Naruto doesn’t abandon his friends’? ‘Way of the ninja’? That’s so not you.”

“Aheh.” Naruto rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I was quoting _Ikazuchi Saga_ for most of that. It seemed so appropriate, and besides, when else am I going to get the chance?”

“The important thing is that he bought it,” Sasuke observed. “We just outplayed a jōnin on our first day as genin. Maybe this team has a future after all.”

“That reminds me,” Sakura said in a deceptively sweet voice. “Naruto, why didn't you tell me that getting groped by Kakashi-sensei was part of the plan?”

“What? But—”

The force of her uppercut was a wonder to behold.

“What did _I_ dooooooooooo...” Naruto screamed as he vanished into the stratosphere.

“Hey, Sasuke, want to go on a date to celebrate our victory?”

Sasuke didn't answer. He was busy watching Naruto's trajectory with a thoughtful look on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although there are many differences with canon, this work assumes a certain basic level of knowledge of the Narutoverse setting and characters. For those unfamiliar with canon who wish to proceed anyway, here is a run-down of common untranslated terms:
> 
> ANBU: A ninja village’s elite special forces who report directly to the village leader. Hidden Leaf’s ANBU wear animal masks, and are addressed by the corresponding names, while on duty in order to preserve their anonymity. Other villages have analogous systems. (derived from ANsatsu senjutsu tokushu BUtai, “assassination and military tactics special unit”.)
> 
> Chakra: The life force that animates all living beings. Ninja cultivate high levels of it through training and experience, and expend it to power special abilities. (The word is borrowed from Hindu metaphysics.)
> 
> Chūnin: Mid-rank ninja. Chūnin have proved their competence and are eligible to lead their own squads. (lit. “middle ninja”.)
> 
> Dōjutsu: Techniques involving special eye powers. Very few ninja clans have these. (lit. “eye techniques”.)
> 
> Fūma shuriken: Enormous shuriken a metre or so across, originally developed by the Fūma Clan. Some are collapsible for easy carrying. (lit. “wind demon shuriken”.)
> 
> Genin: Bottom-rank ninja. Those who successfully graduate from the Ninja Academy at twelve become genin. (lit. “lower ninja”.)
> 
> Genjutsu: Illusion/mind control magic, typically (though not exclusively) targeting the senses. Costs chakra to use, but usually not much. Can be countered using the Dispelling Technique, which is essentially an intense blast of your own chakra.
> 
> Hokage: The ruler of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, where the story begins. Each of the five major villages has its own Kage, typically the strongest ninja in the village. (lit. “fire shadow”.)
> 
> Jōnin: Top-rank ninja. Jōnin are, without exception, extremely powerful. Some ninja are “special jōnin”, meaning they’ve achieved top-level proficiency in one skill and are otherwise chūnin-level. (lit. “upper ninja”.)
> 
> Kunai: The default ninja weapon, dagger-like and usable both in melee at range. Carried in improbably large quantities by Narutoverse ninja. In real life, these were adapted farming tools, favoured for their easy availability and versatility. (lit. “no suffering”, don’t ask me why.)
> 
> Kunoichi: Female ninja. Equal to their male counterparts in every way. (lit. “one of nine”, but the term is thought to derive from a visual pun on the kanji for “woman”.)
> 
> Manga: The Japanese equivalent of comic books. “Naruto” is one of the most famous. (lit. “loose drawings.”)
> 
> Ninja: In medieval Japan, special clans of mercenaries hired for intelligence gathering, sabotage and assassination. Their extraordinary levels of training, and unique equipment and know-how, led ordinary people to believe that ninja had supernatural powers. The Narutoverse ninja are very different to their real-life inspirations. (lit. “hiding person”.)
> 
> Ninjutsu: Magic cast by forming hand seals and spending chakra. The majority of ninjutsu belong to one of five elements, and are stronger against one and weaker against another. A ninja typically has a natural affinity that allows them to use ninjutsu of one element, and can acquire more affinities with intensive training. (lit. “ninja techniques”.)
> 
> Ramen: A delicious noodle-based dish.
> 
> Ryō: Unit of currency, based a Japanese currency used in the days of real ninja.
> 
> Sensei: A term of respect for a teacher, or sometimes a professional in general, commonly used as a suffix to their name. I’ve tried to avoid Japanese suffixes in an English-language work, but can’t come up with a non-awkward way to substitute for this one. (lit. “further ahead in life”.)
> 
> Shinobi: Another word for ninja. (A common contraction for “shinobi no mono”, which is another way to read the kanji for “ninja”.)
> 
> Shuriken: Throwing stars. Like kunai, carried in improbably large amounts, typically in leg pouches or holsters. Unlike real shuriken, typically not poisoned. 
> 
> Taijutsu: Martial arts and other forms of physical combat. Sometimes used as an umbrella term to include skills like kenjutsu (swordsmanship). (lit. “body techniques”.)


	3. Chapter 3

Naruto was officially fed up with being a genin. Weeding gardens? Moving furniture? Mowing lawns? And the cat… the less said about the cat, the better. Meanwhile the D-rank mission pay was pathetic (and that was coming from _him_ , a guy who had to count every single ryō to get through the month), Sakura was a prima donna who wouldn't deign to dirty her hands with manual labour (unless the labour was inflicting violence on his person), and swapping ever more creative barbs with Sasuke was the only thing keeping him sane.

But there was one upside to being a genin. The public libraries had been happy enough to automatically refuse Naruto membership while he was a random kid with nobody to speak up for him. They were less ready to do so now he answered directly to the Leaf Village government and could call down funding-imperilling scrutiny if he made enough of a fuss.

Thus, even after the day he’d had, Naruto could at least look forward to lounging back with a bowl of hot, life-giving ramen and his library copy of _Clone Techniques: Tips from the Masters_. Or that had been the plan before he heard the knock on his door.

If this was Mrs Inazuma from downstairs _again_ …

“I told you, that smell isn't coming from _my_ flat, you old bat!” he yelled.

He punctuated the complaint by swinging the door open so hard it nearly crashed against the wall.

Hinata, standing with her hand frozen in mid-air, gave him a nervous look. “I’m sorry. Is this a bad time?”

“Oh, sorry, Hinata. Just another day in the Sewage Wars. What's up?”

Hinata held up a paper bag, interposing it between herself and Naruto like a shield.

“Um… Chōji asked me to return your manga for him. He said he'd promised to give it back today, but he's hurt his ankle and can't walk all the way over here.”

“Huh.” Chōji had in fact promised no such thing. He'd borrowed the first five volumes of _Burning Fighting Fighter_ , an old series Naruto knew off by heart. But he didn’t think Hinata was lying either. So why would Chōji go to the trouble of sending her over here?

But Naruto didn’t care about that as much as he cared about resuming his badly-needed relaxation.

“Thanks, Hinata. I appreciate it.” Naruto took the bag and stepped back into the flat.

Hinata didn't move. She started to fidget, tapping her index fingers against each other repeatedly. The thought came to Naruto that he was seeing a physical ellipsis mark, a sign to indicate that some other action was being omitted.

“Was there anything else?”

“Naruto, I...

 “I…”

After a couple of seconds in which they looked at each other without any further communication taking place, Naruto chose to assume that she’d changed her mind.

“OK, then. Catch you later!”

Naruto began to shut the door.

“Ineedtotalktoyou!”

He opened the door again. Hinata was bright red, and looked like she wished the cracks in the floor would open up and swallow her.

“Did you say something?”

“Um...” she started fidgeting again. She looked up at him and then slowly repeated, “I need to talk to you.”

So much for that afternoon of peace and quiet.

“M-May I please come in?” Hinata asked in a trembling voice more suited to a line like “May I please be eaten by lions?”

“Sure.”

Naruto took a look back at his flat.

“Hold that thought.”

He shut the door, but his voice carried.

“Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

What followed was a cacophony of voices, all Naruto's.

“It expired _how_ many months ago? Get rid of it—now! No, I don't care how many of you it destroys in the process!”

“Is that...? Yikes, she can't see that! Get rid of it! I don't know, hide it under the bed or something!”

“Clear some space for her to sit down!”

“What even _is_ that?”

“No idea. But it looks really cool and it only cost five ryō. Put it in the corner.”

“Look out, coming through!” (This last was followed by a clang like that of lots of metallic things falling on the floor in a heap.)

Before long, the door opened again.

“Come on in.”

-o-

Hinata entered with trepidation. She was inside Naruto's flat. The flat of Naruto. The actual place where Naruto lived. She’d Seen it before, of course, but there was a difference between the layered spatial perception of the Byakugan and standing in the middle of someone’s home in person. The posters, the untidy bed, the half-open scrolls and the teetering stacks of manga… it was so _him_ … finally in colour and warm and close enough to touch.

It also looked like an accident at the explosive tag workshop, and that was _after_ being cleaned by an army of clones.

She’d been to two other classmates’ homes before, visiting to pay her respects to their clans when they were assigned to the same team. The Aburame residence had been a place of understated order, with even the buzzing of the insects creating an eerie background harmony. Meanwhile Kiba had skipped the main buildings altogether, and taken her straight to the kennels so she could meet his full family. But both were spacious compounds that followed familiar architectural traditions, whereas here she’d stepped into another world.

Yet it didn’t make her feel on edge. Naruto’s flat felt so different to the spartan atmosphere of the Hyūga Clan compound, and in fact her father would disown her on the spot if she ever left her room in such a state. Whereas here the mess was somehow natural, even comforting.

-o-

“So what's up?” Naruto asked, wondering why Hinata was looking around like she’d never seen Hokage-subsidised budget housing before.

Hinata looked down, her gaze tracing the grain of the flat’s wooden floor. “Naruto, I... I have a confession to make.”

To Naruto, Hinata was little more than “that quiet girl with no pupils and a cool hoodie”. Given they’d barely interacted over six years of ninja training, he couldn't begin to guess what she might have to confess to him.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” Hinata began with a statement that didn’t reassure Naruto in the least. “I just happened to be walking past your flat on the way somewhere, and I heard you talking. But your voice was sort of… overlapping with itself, and that made me curious.”

It briefly occurred to Naruto that his flat was on the second floor of a semi-detached building, and thus not on the way to _anywhere_ , but right now he had bigger concerns. Depending on what Hinata had heard…

“So... So I Looked, and I saw you playing shogi with your own clone. And I wondered why you'd do that, when you'd only end up making the same moves as each other, so I kept watching. At first, I thought you were just wast—using your time unproductively, because I couldn’t see any pattern to how you were placing your pieces, and your clone looked like it was reacting without taking time to consider.”

Naruto kept a neutral expression on his face. He couldn’t afford to take his focus off Hinata in case he missed some vital detail of her story, but at the same time he needed space to think. There were many ways this conversation could go, some of them disastrous, and if he didn’t come up with a plan to steer Hinata into safer waters, there was a catastrophic risk that she would come to the right conclusions. He bitterly wished this conversation were taking place when he felt less worn out.

“And then your clone said, 'Checkmate'. And I studied the board again, and suddenly I realised that your moves hadn’t been random at all, and that you’d made a clone which was using a _strategy_. Then you played some other games and... um... I watched those as well.”

Hinata broke off. She glanced at Naruto, as if trying to gauge his response, but he did his best to give nothing away.

She took a deep breath. “And... and I sort of followed you when you went to the Training Grounds on your own... and I saw you coming up with all these amazing uses for the Academy techniques. It made me wonder why no one taught us things like that.”

Her voice was getting quieter.

“And... um... I followed you many times after that. I kept wanting to talk to you, but... I was afraid you'd tell me to go away... so I just kept watching you.”

“So you were spying on me,” Naruto said coldly, his already-low patience not up to the challenge today. It wasn't on his mental map of where he wanted the conversation to go, but that was getting harder to hold onto as his emotions intensified.

Hinata reeled as if he'd hit her.

“I'm sorry! I'm really sorry! I know it was wrong, and I shouldn't have, and I'm really sorry, and if it bothers you I'll never do it again...”

Naruto could see tears forming in her eyes. It made him feel sorry for her, and that in itself made him feel angry all over again because she was making him feel sorry for her when he was supposed to be feeling angry. Now he was feeling emotionally blackmailed, and angry, and guilty about feeling angry, and angry about feeling guilty, and the more he thought about it the more tangled it all got. He gritted his teeth and tried hard to force the whole mess down while he dealt with the immediate crisis.

“So is that what you wanted to tell me?”

“N-No, that was so you’d understand… how I knew. What I wanted to tell you is something I’ve been thinking… ever since I saw you that day.”

She paused.

“I—I always thought... I thought you were an incredibly brave person for never giving up when things seemed hard. And I always wished I could be confident the way you are. And then...”

Hinata took a few deep breaths and gradually relaxed a little. Naruto, caught completely off guard by the compliments, quietly waited for her.

“Then I discovered you were clever as well. Clever and creative and... cunning. So cunning you made everyone in the class think you were... well... not very bright. And that's when I knew. I...”

She stopped. Whatever she was trying to say must have been pushing her courage to the limit.

“Naruto, I...”

Naruto swallowed. She couldn't be...

“I want you to train me.”

 _What?_ Naruto’s anger drained away; there wasn't enough room left for both it and the confusion.

“I'm sorry, what did you say?”

“I want you to train me,” Hinata repeated.

“Me? Train you? Train you in _what_?”

“I... I want to be like you.”

Naruto stared at her. “That's ridiculous.”

He sat down heavily on the bed. Hinata promptly moved to a nearby chair.

“Hinata, you've got friends who like you, and a loving family. You don't want to be like me. Nobody wants to be like me.”

Hinata looked up sharply. “You're wrong.”

That was as assertive as he'd ever heard her. He gave her a questioning look.

She was quiet for a few seconds. “I’m sorry, can we not talk about that now? Please? I... I don’t have the right words, and I shouldn’t talk about it anyway, and can we please leave it for now?”

Naruto nodded. “So what exactly is it that you want from me?”

“I want to know how to be confident and clever and creative... the way you are. I don't know if you can teach something like this, but please... if you can, I want to learn.”

Naruto had never contemplated whether you could deliberately teach qualities of character, never mind how you'd do it. He knew that, in theory, the Academy was meant to inculcate virtues like loyalty and hard work alongside the knowledge and skills expected of a ninja, but after six long years he still did not feel particularly inculcated.

“Um... I can pay you,” Hinata ventured.

Naruto didn’t know how he felt about this. The Hokage’s stipend was tiny, and the payments for washing dishes and babysitting weren’t making him a millionaire either, but was this the kind of thing that you took money for? Especially from a fellow genin who had apparently put some important part of her on the line just to ask for it?

“I don't have much—my father doesn't give me pocket money because he says I'll only spend it on frivolous things—but there are some old people near the edge of the village who let me do chores for them, out where no one from my clan is likely to go. And I have some savings from the fees we get for missions. So I _can_ pay you.”

“No,” Naruto replied more on instinct than rational consideration. “Wow, you're actually worse off than me. How's that even possible? I mean, aren't you the heir to the most powerful clan in Leaf?”

Hinata looked down and said nothing. Naruto decided not to press the matter.

“Why do you want training so badly, anyway?”

Hinata shifted around in the chair. “I'm sorry. I know I'm being a pain... but this is really hard for me. I'm… not good at talking to people. So could we just... generally leave talking about me for another time?”

Hinata tensed, as if expecting Naruto to lose his patience with her and lash out.

“Sure.”

It didn’t seem to be the response she was expecting, which was downright odd, but now was not the time to think about it.

“Tell you what,” Naruto said. “I’m going to need some time to figure out whether this sort of thing is teachable, and how. Why don't you come back same time tomorrow and we'll talk about it some more?”

Hinata nodded fervently. Her expression looked like it was looping all the way through excitement and back into anxiety.

“In the meantime, I want you to promise me that you won't mention any of this to anyone—not the training, and not my intelligence.”

Hinata nodded again. “I promise.

“Um... Naruto... if you don't mind me asking... why _do_ you act like you're less bright than you are?”

“Let's leave that for another time as well. Now it's getting dark—you'd better go home. And if this ends up going anywhere, you’ll need an excuse for when people ask where you're spending so much time.”

With that, he showed her out, still inwardly dazed at the turn the conversation had taken. He'd considered a variety of possibilities when she started speaking, up to and including having to deal with blackmail, but training? From him? For an idea that was so obviously wrong on so many levels, it was nevertheless strangely compelling.

-o-

It was a warm, sunny day, and Team Seven were enjoying some healthy exercise by the artificial riverbank. If by “enjoying some healthy exercise” you mean “picking up rubbish while grumbling continuously”.

“Why do they even _need_ ninja to do this?” Naruto complained. “Anyone, and I mean anyone, could pick up rubbish. We should be off escorting civilians through danger, or hunting deadly criminals, or whatever it is _real_ ninja do.”

“Quit moaning, imbecile,” Sasuke responded from some distance away. “It's probably you dragging our average IQ down to rock bottom so they won't trust our team with anything else.”

“Nah, I think it's that they know you're so incompetent you'd blow up the village if they gave you a mission that needed weapons,” Naruto was quick to reply.

There was a moment of silence in which both boys had the same thought: there was something curiously familiar about this whole thing.

-o-

A much smaller Sasuke’s hand closed around the last dumpling remaining at the outdoor stall. “I'll take this!”

How strange. Did his voice always come with an echo?

Looking to his right, Sasuke saw a grinning blond boy with his hand on the other half of Sasuke’s dumpling.

“Hey, I was here first!”

“No, I was here first!”

The shopkeeper looked between the two as if weighing options.

“Buzz off, kid, the Uchiha got it first.”

Sasuke and the blond boy both ignored him, and slammed down their money on the counter with their spare hands. The shopkeeper didn’t seem to object.

A tug of war ensued as Sasuke tried to carry his dumpling away with him, while the other boy did the same in the opposite direction. Their struggle slowly dragged them down the riverbank, towards the river.

Sasuke waited for the other boy’s reaction. Having heard his name, would he let go of the dumpling because his parents had taught him to show pity to the poor Uchiha orphan? Or would he snatch the dumpling and run because he'd been taught to stay away from the cursed Uchiha child who had suspiciously survived the massacre of his entire clan?

But what actually happened was the most natural outcome, namely that Sasuke won the tug of war. He continued to watch the other boy warily, but could not have expected what happened next.

The boy struck a dramatic, manga hero pose and pointed a finger at him. “I challenge you to a duel!”

Sasuke burst into helpless laughter.

The other boy turned crimson.

“Are you some kind of imbecile?” Sasuke asked when he could breathe.

“Shut up, greaseball!” the boy retaliated.

“Greaseball?” Sasuke repeated incredulously. “You're insulting my _hair_? What are you, a girl?”

“No,” the boy barely hesitated, “I'm the guy who's going to kick your ass!”

“Bring it on!”

Sasuke and the boy threw themselves at each other, and before either knew it, they were rolling up and down the riverbank, kicking and punching and elbowing with everything they had. At one point, Sasuke stepped on something round and squishy, but he didn’t let that distract him from his inevitable victory.

Given where they were, and the fact that beating the other boy was the only thing in the world that mattered, it was only a matter of time until they found themselves rolling into the river.

Splash!

Sasuke wouldn’t have abandoned the fight if the Hokage himself were dragging him away by the collar, but there were limits, and being drenched to his very bones was one of them. He reluctantly let the other boy make his escape so he could go home and dry off.

Still, Sasuke couldn’t let him think their battle was over. That was the most fun he’d had since… since… well, for a long time, anyway.

“I'll get your gravestone ready for the next time I see you, loser,” he called out as he was about to leave. “What name do you want on it?”

“Uzumaki Naruto, Slayer of... who are you again?”

“Uchiha Sasuke, and—”

“Right. Uzumaki Naruto, Slayer of Uchiha Sasuke. Make sure you get it in marble or granite, not the cheap stuff.”

Naruto grinned and ran off before Sasuke could get the last word in.

With that, the boys went their separate ways, and Sasuke finally had a worthy rival.

-o-

“Think fast, greaseball!”

Sasuke was snapped out of his reminiscence by a drinks can heading towards his head at near-relativistic speed. He caught it by luck as much as skill, and did not hesitate to retaliate. However, he was too cunning to just do the same thing back. His rock, lobbed with perfect kunai-throwing form, went into the river right next to Naruto, splashing him from head to toe.

“Oh, that's it!” Naruto growled. “You want to see who can get who wet? Believe me, I can get you wetter than you can imagine!”

Kakashi-sensei, who was standing nearby, broke into a sudden coughing fit. When it was over, he waved his arms.

“Naruto! Sasuke! Sakura! I just happen to have a super special prize for whoever collects the most rubbish in the next five minutes.”

Both boys looked up.

“Hah. Too easy,” Sasuke said.

“Oh, really?” Naruto replied. “Maybe you just don't know how fast I am.”

“It's on!”

Within five minutes, the riverbank was restored to a state of pristine cleanliness it had likely not known since the day Senju Hashirama so thoughtlessly founded the Village Hidden in the Leaves around it.

Kakashi-sensei carefully examined both competitors' sacks.

“Winner: Uchiha Sasuke!”

Sasuke smirked.

Naruto muttered, “I knew I should have used my shadow clones.”

“The winner gets my super special prize: not having to carry the rubbish to the recycling station.”

Sasuke smirked some more.

“The runner-up, Uzumaki Naruto, gets the consolation prize: also not having to carry the rubbish to the recycling station.”

Naruto grinned. Sasuke's smirk faded a little.

“Sakura, that means you get to carry it all.”

“What?!” demanded an outraged Sakura. “I wasn't even competing!”

“Exactly,” Kakashi-sensei said. “Either you pull your own weight, or you pull other people's weights. That's what it means to be part of a team.”

-o-

_Later that afternoon..._

“All right, I've thought about it.”

Hinata listened attentively, hands folded in her lap.

“I don't think you can fake your way to courage or confidence, and you certainly can't do it with intelligence. Or maybe you can, but I wouldn’t teach something like that even if I knew how.”

Hinata nodded. She was intrigued to hear Naruto in lecture mode; once, the idea would have seemed as bizarre as Shino cultivating Venus flytraps. More importantly, he _was_ lecturing her. He hadn’t rejected her. He hadn’t told her to go away. He hadn’t laughed at her or been appalled at her audacity or any of the thousand other things she’d imagined in those minutes standing on his doorstep, trying to summon up the courage to knock. He was taking her seriously. Now all she had to do was not disappoint him.

“Some people seem to be naturally confident,” Naruto went on, pacing back and forth across the small flat. “Look at Kiba—dumb as a brick, no special talents apart from the standard Inuzuka package, and yet he still acts like he owns the place.”

“Th-That's not very nice, Naruto. Kiba is a good person,” Hinata interjected without thinking.

“I know he is. Believe me, I do. But point to the part of my description that you think is wrong.”

Hinata had nothing to say to that.

“I don't think you and I can do what he does. Maybe it's our backgrounds, maybe it's something else, but we need a reason to feel good about ourselves. Something we can be proud of.”

Something Hinata could be proud of?

“Would you mind explaining that a bit more?”

“I mean things we're good at, or things we like about ourselves. I'm proud of my intelligence. I'm proud of the fact that I always try to figure out how things fit together, and look for unexplored possibilities, where other people just accept things as they are. I'm proud of the fact that I've never given up, even though most of the world has hated me and tried to screw me over my entire life. You see what I mean?”

Hinata's eyes widened with distress towards the end of this explanation.

“Most of the world?” she echoed.

“Most of the world,” Naruto stated flatly. “Except maybe half a dozen amazing people. And later our classmates at the Academy, but I had to work hard for that.”

“By acting like you were... um...?” Hinata asked, then stopped suddenly. She did _not_ want to accidentally insult him.

“Ask yourself this, Hinata,” Naruto said. “Forgetting me for a second, who's the smartest, most talented person in our age group?”

Hinata didn't have to think long. “Uchiha Sasuke.”

“And how many friends does Sasuke have?”

Hinata was silent.

“Exactly. Intelligence and talent might win you admiration, but they don't get you affection. I picked up on that early on,” Naruto explained with a tinge of bitterness to his voice.

“That's... That's completely unfair!” Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? If you wanted people to care about you, you had to work hard and make the most of the talents you were born with. The better you were, the more love and respect you earned from those around you. That was how the world _worked_. If Naruto wasn’t being rewarded for his intelligence, then that meant something fundamental was broken, something Hinata had no idea how to fix.

“It is unfair,” Naruto agreed. “But this isn't about fairness, it's about recognising how life really is. When you're smarter than everyone else, it makes them jealous, or uncomfortable, or suspicious. They start treating you like you're a different kind of person from them. If you're lucky, they'll put you on a pedestal. If you’re not, they'll ostracise you.

“I'm telling you this because the only thing I know how to teach you is how to think like me. And if you learn to think like me, you might have to face the same problems I do. Are you sure that’s what you want?”

Hinata was quiet for a long time.

“Naruto, how many friends do you think _I_ have?”

“Huh?” Naruto looked like she’d asked him how the colour blue tasted. “I don't know, I've never thought about it. But it’s not like you’re unpopular. I've seen you with Sakura and Ino before, and your teammates like you, right?”

Hinata sighed. “Um... let me put it another way. What do _you_ know about me, Naruto? Apart from what I told you yesterday?”

“Well... you're the heir to the Hyūga Clan. You can use the Byakugan. You've got OK test scores, not bad but not top of the class. You're kind of shy and you don't say much. You do this thing with your fingers a lot. You... um...”

“That's all _anyone_ knows about me.”

Naruto looked up at this. “I'm sure that's not—”

“I'm a wallflower, Naruto.”

She was as surprised as he was at the interruption. She hadn’t planned to thrust her feelings at him unasked, but for some reason, some part of her felt he needed to know. He needed to understand why she was here.

“If I disappeared tomorrow, I don't think anyone outside my family would notice until I was needed for a mission. I don't _have_ any popularity to lose.”

Her hands were tightened into fists. She’d said it, and his response would determine everything.

“I'd notice.”

“What?”

“If you disappeared, I mean,” Naruto clarified. “I know I don't know you very well, but I think it must have taken a lot of courage to come talk to me the way you did. I’m not going to forget someone I’ve witnessed being brave.”

Hinata blushed. “I'm not brave at all. But... thank you.”

An awkward silence settled over the small flat.

“So,” Naruto stood up sharply, arms out in an expansive gesture of declaration, “it's time for shogi!”

He pulled out a game board and set it on the kitchen table.

“Shogi?” Hinata asked, shifting the chair she was sitting on in front of the table (only realising afterwards that she hadn’t asked before moving his furniture).

“Of course! Do you know what 'emergent' means?” he asked as he started setting up pieces.

Hinata shook her head.

“It's what happens when you take a bunch of simple rules and they interact to result in very complex patterns and effects. In shogi, the only rules are how the pieces move, plus a few special ones for promotion and such.” He paused. “Um, you _do_ know the rules of shogi, right?”

“Yes. My father tried playing with me before, but he gave up when I wasn't very good.”

Naruto opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Anyway, you take a set of very simple rules, but when you put them together, you get deep, complex strategy. You can learn the rules of shogi in ten minutes. You can spend a lifetime getting good at it.”

“I see. And this will teach me to think how you think?”

“Stranger things have—I mean, absolutely. First you get good at spotting patterns and possibilities. Then you learn to find your own blind spots. Then you learn to identify the dominant paradigm and look for alternative ones.”

“I'm... not sure I followed that last part.” Hinata wasn’t keeping up, and she could only hope Naruto was a patient teacher.

“I picked up the language from a book I found in the library the other day,” Naruto explained. “Gotta tell you, having free access to that place is fantastic. What it means is... say you're playing shogi. Your objective is to win by putting the enemy king in checkmate.”

Hinata nodded.

“What if you want to win a different way? For example, maybe the person you're playing against is much better than you, but you still need to win no matter what. Then you might go for a strategy that isn't as effective, but is really, really annoying, until they get flustered and start making lots of mistakes. Or you might do nothing but defend, so they despair of getting through your defences before it's time for them to go home, and try to rush their strategy—and again, make lots of mistakes. Or maybe you want to let them win so they think they're smarter than you, and then you can kick their ass during a more important game later, like in a championship. You see where I'm going with this?”

That sounded unexpectedly simple when you broke it down. “You're saying that... there are many different things you can do to get what you want, but first you have to let go of the idea that there's only one way to win.”

Naruto beamed. “Exactly.”

“So... let's play?” Hinata asked tentatively.

 

“Again!”

 

“Again! This time, your objective is to take as many pieces as possible.”

 

“Again! This time, your objective is to make the game last for as many moves as possible.”

 

“Again! This time, your objective is to surprise me.”

 

“Again! Wait, what time is it? Aaargh!”

“Eek, my father is going to kill me! Bye, Naruto!”

-o-

That night, Naruto stayed up late making notes. You can learn a lot about a person by watching them play a game you're very familiar with, and he was starting to get ideas for further training, from games to mental exercises and reading recommendations. Hinata was putting a great deal of trust in him, and he had no intention of letting her down. Plus, the whole thing seemed like a lot of fun, and he badly needed something to take his mind off the tedium of D-rank missions.

The possibility of gaining an equal through the process never once occurred to him. It was impossible. And unreasonable. And way too much pressure to put on someone like Hinata. And ran counter to everything he believed about human nature. And anyway, even if genius could be taught, that in no way meant that he, Uzumaki Naruto, had the skill and know-how necessary to teach it. No, the whole idea was ridiculous and had never even crossed his mind.

Naruto was in the middle of drawing a sprawling decision-making flowchart with at least five different colours of crayon when he finally fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to take a second to explain why this work uses macrons like "ō" or "ū" for long vowels instead of the more conventional “ou” or “uu” (or the thankfully outdated "oh" and "u"). Japanese long vowels are exactly the same as normal vowels, except held twice as long (the way you’d go from “aah” to “aaaah” to indicate a longer scream). "Jōnin" is pronounced with the same "o" as "on", only longer, not as in "own", which isn't obvious when you see the vowel written as "ou". Macrons avoid this problem, with their only disadvantages being that not many people have heard of them and you need to know how to type them.


	4. Chapter 4

Hinata was buzzing with excitement. After countless shogi matches and mental training exercises (mostly bizarre lateral thinking puzzles she suspected Naruto was making up himself), as well as her nightly homework of playing shogi against her clone, he'd finally declared her ready for practical training and taken her to the Training Grounds.

Beyond the joy of advancing to a new level of training, there was another layer of expectation making her heart beat faster. Her and Naruto, alone in the vast expanse of the Training Grounds. His attention focused on her and her only. Their bodies in continuous, close contact...

Hinata shook her head. No. Whatever she may dream about at other times, whatever their relationship may _be_ at other times, here and now they were master and apprentice. This training time was sacred, set aside from the thoughts and feelings of daily life, and she would not dishonour it by showing less than total dedication. Besides, she reassured herself, she could always fantasise to her heart's content afterwards.

“All right,” Naruto announced, hopefully oblivious to Hinata’s many thoughts. “Let's start off by seeing how good you are at taijutsu.”

Hinata settled into a neutral Gentle Fist stance and waited for Naruto to come at her. Within a matter of seconds, she realised that he was _good_. Not on the level of the Hyūga experts her father had her spar against, of course, but far better than anything he'd ever displayed at the Academy. She said as much when she next caught her breath.

“Well, the teachers at the Academy mostly hated me too much to actually teach me anything, so when I stuck to the Academy style, I didn't have much to go on,” Naruto explained. “Most of what I know comes from provoking people into trying to kill me, and then learning from their styles. You'd be amazed how quickly you pick things up when you regularly fight people way more skilled than you are. It's even better when they're angry enough to use techniques they'd normally try to keep secret.

“And now I have shadow clones as well. They're not as good as real people for picking up new moves from, but they're always available, they give me complete freedom to experiment, and they do a perfect job of showing me my own weaknesses. I get great mileage out of them when my normal partners aren't available.”

“Oh? So whom _do_ you normally spar with?”

The answer surprised her.

“Sasuke, of course. What, you think I piss him off just for the fun of it?”

Hinata considered this in light of everything she knew about the two boys. “Actually... that _is_ what I think.”

Naruto shrugged. “All right, you got me there. But I've learned more from doing that than from all the Academy teachers put together. I never said this and you can't repeat it, but that guy's taijutsu is really something.”

Hinata giggled.

Naruto decided this was a good time to move away from the subject. “Let's step up the pace a little!”

Naruto threw out a quick punch, then immediately moved to avoid her counter. Within a few exchanges, it became obvious that while Hinata had a very respectable defence, her offence was half-hearted by comparison. Naruto was just starting to think about the implications of this when his foot slipped on a wet leaf.

Falling forwards, he instinctively grabbed the nearest solid object for support. Unfortunately, the nearest solid object was Hinata, who’d just moved in to take advantage of an opening.

Hinata went down, with Naruto on top of her. Naruto managed to avoid headbutting her as they landed, but his movement instead brought his mouth up, and his lips brushed lightly against hers. At this, Hinata gave a squeak, went bright red and collapsed in a dead faint.

Naruto froze. “Hinata? Uh, Hinata?”

In a strange sort of karmic revenge for the suffering of Kakashi-sensei, a script started writing itself in his head.

Hinata: (waking up) “Kyaaaa! Naruto, you pervert! How could you take advantage of me like that?”

Naruto: “What? No! Hinata, I swear I never did anything!”

Hinata: “Do you take me for a fool? Get out of my sight. I never want to see you again!”

Exit stage left.

Hinata's father: (entering stage left) “How dare you violate my poor, naive, innocent daughter who also happens to be my precious heir?!”

Naruto: “What? No, it's just a misunder—”

Hinata's father: (glowing with a blue aura of doom) “No excuses. You will pay for your crimes. Hyūga Certain Kill Ultimate Death Technique: Fist of Eternal Torment!”

Naruto: (dying in agony) “At least... I'll get to see my parents in Heaven...”

Hinata's father: “No, you won't. Perverts and molesters like you go straight to Hell!”

Demons rise from beneath the ground to drag Naruto's soul into the cold hells. The people's cheers and sounds of jubilation drown out his cries for mercy.

Curtain.

-o-

When he was younger, Naruto's visits to Leaf General Hospital would provoke no greater reaction than "Must be Thursday". These days, he garnered more attention since his visits were less frequent and so the betting pool had time to grow. But nothing could have prepared him for the immediacy of the response he got today, when he barrelled through the hospital doors with an unconscious pre-teen girl slung over his back.

“What's wrong with her? Is she going to be all right?” Naruto was near panic. His first aid training hadn’t covered anything like this. Had he been taught wrong after all, like with everything else? The Academy instructors wouldn’t have sabotaged his ability to save _other_ people’s lives, right? He should have done more self-study. Why wasn’t he more prepared?

The doctor’s cold blue eyes watched Naruto through a pair of steel-framed glasses. Naruto could feel his soul being weighed in the balance.

“She will be fine in a few hours, young man,” the doctor told Naruto in an even, dispassionate voice. “I believe it is merely a case of excessive sensory stimulation. Now, would you like to tell me what you did to bring about this state of affairs?”

Part of Naruto was going red with embarrassment, while another was going pale with worry at the implications, to the net effect that his complexion did not change.

“I didn't do anything!”

“I see,” the doctor held his gaze for a few seconds. “And is that what you intend to tell Lord Hiashi when I inform him that infamous troublemaker Uzumaki Naruto has just hospitalised his beloved daughter?”

Naruto’s internal struggle ended abruptly as panic conquered all other feelings and unilaterally banished the blood from his face.

“You wouldn't really do that, would you?”

Naruto should have been analysing, calculating, looking for a way to take control of the conversation. Why wouldn’t his higher brain functions respond?

“I'm afraid it is part of my oath as a doctor to take all steps necessary to ensure the welfare of my patients. And if I cannot make you admit the truth, I'm certain Lord Hiashi will.”

“Look,” Naruto said in a voice that was intended to be reasonable but came out pleading, “we were sparring and we sort of fell over and… I guess our lips may have touched each other's… and she fainted! It was a complete accident! She'll tell you as much when she comes to! And, and, anyway, if I was some sort of molester, would I bring her to the hospital?”

The doctor said nothing.

“And I'm a fricking ninja! If I'd done something wrong, I would at least have come in disguise!”

The doctor said nothing.

“Look, I'm not disguised at all!” Naruto shouted desperately. “I'll prove it!”

He promptly punched himself in the face.

The doctor blinked with awe at either Naruto’s determination or his stupidity, but seemed to accept this as evidence that he wasn’t under the Transformation Technique.

“Please don't call her family!” Naruto all but begged.

The doctor stroked his short, neatly-trimmed black beard with a glint of amusement in his eye. “Ahh, the pieces begin to fall into place. Perhaps I can accept a compromise. I will leave the matter to Lady Hinata's discretion, and she can inform Lord Hiashi herself if she so chooses.”

“Oh, thank you!” Naruto gasped with relief. The immediate crisis averted, his brain belatedly started working again, and a thought occurred to him. “May I stay here until she wakes up? Even though _it was a complete accident_ , I sort of feel responsible.”

The doctor considered it for a second, then nodded. Subtly inclining his head to indicate an end to the interaction, he left the room and returned to his work.

-o-

Naruto sat down next to Hinata's bed and looked at her. There was a gentle softness to her features he’d never noticed before—maybe because he’d never really paid her appearance that much attention, or maybe everybody looked like this when they were asleep and Naruto had simply never had the chance to find out. And while Hinata’s pupilless Hyūga eyes normally added a touch of inhumanity to her appearance—as a small child, Naruto had found the Hyūga terrifying—asleep she looked like any other girl. It made the distance between them seem a little smaller.

The silence was a peaceful one as Naruto watched Hinata's sleeping form, pondering her taijutsu abilities and where he could take her training from here. He also pondered her sudden loss of consciousness and how to make sure it didn’t happen next time. Was it because their lips had touched? No, that would be ridiculous. Just a coincidence. It wasn’t like it had been a kiss or anything. That would have made it his first kiss, and probably hers too, and that kind of thing simply didn’t happen to Uzumaki Naruto.

No, it was nothing more than a training accident. Those happened all the time at the Academy, at least to Naruto. And besides, there was no need to jump to conclusions just because he happened to have touched lips with a girl. Why, it could have been anyone. It could have been _Sasuke._

Oh, cold hell, he’d just imagined kissing Sasuke. He almost wanted to call back that doctor from earlier so he could ask for some brain bleach.

Naruto was distracted from his self-inflicted trauma when Hinata began to mutter quietly in her sleep. Naruto politely ignored her, but then he caught his own name.

“Oh, yes, please, Naruto...”

He reeled back. That couldn't be right. No way. She was probably dreaming about him offering her tea or something. Yeah, that had to be it. No matter what it sounded like. Or how it tied in with a few other things he’d started to notice.

And anyway, no girl had ever liked him. Admittedly, Sakura used to be nice to him, once upon a time, back before she fell for Sasuke and her personality did a 180. He'd never forgotten that she had been one of the first people in his life to treat him with kindness, but the flames of that passion cooled with every passing day as he watched her grow up more and more two-faced, sickly-sweet to those she liked and angry and violent to those she didn't. These days, most of the reason he asked her out was because it was a low-effort technique for reinforcing his image as an idiot, and one that only became more effective over time.

“Naruto...”

That was it. He couldn't stay here a second longer. Naruto wrote Hinata a quick explanatory note and ran for the exit.

-o-

“Gentlemen,” Naruto exclaimed back in the safety of his own flat, having restored himself through the calming power of hot cup ramen, “this state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue.”

He paced back and forth before the rows of chairs, the clones sitting on them watching him attentively. The chairs, which were also clones due to his flat’s lack of furniture, watched him attentively as well.

“Now, I will be taking any suggestions on how to resolve the situation. Yes, Naruto Five?”

“Sir!” the clone raised his arm. “We could infiltrate the Hyūga Clan compound and attempt to seize strategic intelligence assets, which is to say her diary.”

Every Naruto knew from manga that all girls had diaries in which they regularly wrote their innermost thoughts. Nevertheless…

“Rejected!” Naruto Prime snapped. “Know your classics, man. She would inevitably find out we’d read it, and then she’d hate us forever. And besides, sneaking past a clan of ninja who can see through walls? Really? Why don’t I run through the Inuzuka compound Transformed into a cat while I’m at it?”

“Sir!”

“Yes, Naruto Twelve?”

“We could ask her straight out if she likes us.”

“Are you mad, private?! Do you have any idea how awkward things would get if it turned out we were wrong and she had to explicitly turn us down?! It could jeopardise her training!”

“Hey, how come I have to be a private?” Naruto Twelve demanded petulantly.

“Have you completed any missions that have furthered the cause of the Worldwide Uzumaki Naruto Coalition?”

“Well, no, sir. You just created me five minutes ago.”

“Exactly. Now shut up.”

Naruto Prime turned back to the whiteboard. His diagram of Hinata left something to be desired—if not for the label, it could be confused for a particularly shy cabbage—but it did come with a detailed list of facts and objectives, and no excuse was too small to use his full range of exaggeratedly bright markers. Naruto had discovered to his delight that, whereas merely touching normal clones was enough to dispel them under any and all circumstances, writing on a shadow clone disguised as a whiteboard did not automatically cross the damage threshold. It unlocked so many glorious possibilities that Naruto almost wished he was still at the Academy with its array of unsuspecting targets.

“Sir!”

“Yes, Naruto Three?”

“I think I have a cunning plan.”

The plan Naruto Three outlined was very cunning indeed. As other clones offered input, pointed out flaws and suggested refinements, Naruto Prime's grin grew ever wider.

-o-

“Hey, where's Sasuke?” Kiba asked. “Didn't you invite everyone to the public baths?”

“Eh, he'll turn up. Even he has to wash his hair _sometime_.”

Naruto carefully scoped out the area. Shikamaru and Chōji were relaxing in the hot bath. Chōji was apparently oblivious to the world, while Shikamaru was idly poking at some stray bubbles.

Kiba and Shino were still washing, and Sasuke was nowhere to be seen. And as far as Naruto knew, Hinata, Sakura and Ino were in the girls' section on the far side of the dividing wall (which, while tall, did not reach all the way to the ceiling for reasons of air circulation).

The time had come.

Outside the entrance to the baths, a man leaning against the wall felt his headband disappear. He nodded to the woman next to him.

Once in position next to the women’s half, they erupted into an eardrum-wrecking shouting match.

“But Yumi, can't you see I love you?”

“Don't lie to me, Hitachi! I saw you last night with that floozy Kihara! If you really cared about our baby...”

“You mean the baby you had with that ANBU assassin? He told me all the sordid details, Yumi! What would your pacifist brother say if he could see you now?”

“You leave Sōichirō out of this!”

Every genin was captivated by the steadily escalating drama—except for the one who had written the script.

Naruto walked nonchalantly up to the far corner of the dividing wall, as far as possible from the entrance and its entertainment. He looked around to make sure no one was watching, and then put his fingers together.

“Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

In a matter of seconds, a column of shadow clones reached the top of the wall. The one at the top then proceeded to create more shadow clones, all pre-Transformed into slim cushions, letting them drop to form a neat stack in the corner of the women’s side. Finally, it created a clone pre-Transformed into a standard-issue small wooden bucket. As the bucket fell, the impact dispelled the cushions one by one, and slowed the bucket until it finally touched the floor without the slightest sound.

A few seconds later, the couple at the entrance agreed that love conquered all, and decided to give their marriage one more try. They walked away arm in arm, vanishing into puffs of smoke once safely out of sight.

Shadow Clone Naruto, concealed in bucket form, was now in position to listen to the three girls talk about boys. It was a core teaching of manga, his sole source of information about romance, that this was what invariably occurred when girls were alone at baths or hot springs together. Granted, manga also warned that any boys peeping on them would inevitably get caught, but then most boys didn’t have the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique.

With the afternoon’s free soap opera over, the girls resumed their conversation.

“Um, Sakura, Ino...” Hinata said timidly. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, Hinata,” Ino replied.

“How do you know if you like a boy?”

Jackpot! Naruto truly was the greatest genius of his time, and gifted with flawless timing to boot. He felt guilty that he (or more precisely Naruto Four) had ever questioned the absolute reliability of manga as a guide to life.

Sakura fielded the question. “How, huh? Well, your heart beats faster when you look at him, and you want to spend all your time with him, and you feel like you're the only person who realises how amazing he really is, and you really want him to notice you...”

“Oh, come _on_ , Sakura,” Ino interrupted. “Quit filling her head with that soppy crap.”

She turned to Hinata. “Navel-gazing is a dumb way to do romance. You think you might like a guy? Go talk to him. Invite him out to do stuff. Maybe ask him on a date. And then if you decide he's fun to be around, it'll be easy to figure out the rest from there.”

“And these are all things you’ve done with Sasuke, are they?” Sakura sneered. “Or have you just been reading too many magazines?”

Ino crossed her arms defensively. “At least I know what I’m supposed to do. I’m not the one who's spent all this time twiddling her thumbs _on the same damn team_ as the guy she likes. If _I_ had this much time with Sasuke every day, I'd have him eating out of my hand by now!”

“If you had this much time with Sasuke every day, he'd realise what a thick-skinned pig you are and dump you in a flash! He doesn't need a moronic tomboy like you!”

“Um... Sakura, Ino... please don't fight...”

“Oh, but he needs an over-sensitive drama queen who couldn't fight her way out of a paper bag?” Ino countered, ignoring or possibly just not hearing Hinata.

Her voice rose to an improbably high pitch as she raised the back of her hand to her forehead and gazed pleadingly at the ceiling. “Oh, save me, Sasuke, I'm so girly and helpless!”

“What was that? You think you're a better ninja than me now? Did you forget who kicked your ass in the last three throwing exams? Let me remind you!”

Sakura grabbed a nearby bucket and threw it at Ino shuriken-style.

However, the bath was expansive, and the bucket wasn’t going to be winning any aerodynamics prizes anytime soon, so Ino had all the time in the world to duck out of the way.

“Oh, is that how it's gonna be?!”

She leapt backwards, out of the bath and towards the washing benches, where a stack of other such buckets provided plentiful ammunition.

Fortunately, there were no other customers in the women's section of the baths. Once Hinata sensibly moved to the furthest possible corner from Sakura, there was no one left to get hurt in the crossfire. This was just as well, as buckets began to whizz through the air like two swarms of bees engaged in a mass jousting match. A few struck each other in accidental but stylish parries, but most went hopelessly wide only to be returned at even greater speed.

Naruto wasn't too worried. He was aware that, in the worst case scenario, a sudden impact could dispel his disguise. It was one reason why he’d decided to use a shadow clone. Any impact hard enough to get rid of the disguise would destroy the clone as well, and he’d made sure the clone was making as little effort to maintain itself as it could get away with.

This was why he was busy pondering whether to wait and see if the conversation resumed once Sakura and Ino (metaphorically) ran out of steam, or to cut his losses and disappear in the chaos, when Sakura reached over and tried to pick _him_ up. He felt her touch as it began to disrupt his disguise—and then her hand slipped off the wet pseudo-wooden surface before the pressure could extend to the clone underneath.

A naked Naruto popped into existence in the middle of the women’s baths.

“Urk.”

“Naruto? What are you doing here?” Hinata asked, her expression conveying nothing but ordinary puzzlement.

Naruto was stunned. Why was Hinata not covering up? She was still mostly underwater, so it wasn’t like he could see anything, but even so manga dictated that a girl could only have one instinct in this kind of situation.

That had to mean she liked him, right? Naruto couldn’t think of anything else it could mean when a girl was OK with you seeing her naked. After all, if it had been Sakura, she’d have punched him through the ceiling by now. Wait, where _was_ Sakura?

“Secret Kunoichi Art: Shatter the Spheres!”

On the other side of the dividing wall, Naruto collapsed in agony as the destroyed shadow clone's experiences came back to him.

As soon as he could move again, he ran for the changing rooms like a man possessed. He had to escape at any cost! This level of danger might even warrant the use of his secret techniques—if he could only suppress the incredible pain enough to concentrate on chakra. He really should have listened to his manga’s warnings.

Unfortunately, the time he’d spent lying on the floor in the foetal position had been enough for the girls to get dressed and move to intercept.

“Gwerk!” Naruto choked as his momentum was arrested by Ino's hand around his throat.

“Uh, can we... talk about... this?” he managed to force out.

“Oh, we will,” Sakura smiled sweetly. “Afterwards.”

-o-

The doctor had refused to give Naruto an estimated recovery time, which was never a good sign in his book. He lay back, staring at the ceiling while alternately pondering Hinata's reaction and reflecting on what his plan had taught him about infiltration. Next time he had to be more careful. He did not enjoy being trapped in a hospital bed feeling like a packet of crisps after five minutes with Chōji. About the only thing he had to be grateful for was that he had a private room—presumably because no patient would be prepared to stay in the same room as the loathsome Nine-Brained Demon Fox.

After some time, the door opened to reveal the last people Naruto wanted to see.

“Um... we're sorry. We may have gone a bit overboard.” Sakura and Ino bowed together, just shallowly enough that Naruto couldn't be sure if they were genuinely repentant or gleefully mocking him.

“I think you broke my everything.”

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson, Naruto,” Sakura admonished.

“I definitely have,” Naruto said in a voice of the purest sincerity. The lesson, of course, was to always have more than one backup plan.

“Oh, just wondering,” Ino went on in a suspiciously casual voice, “which one of us were you trying to peep on?”

Amateurs. At least the Academy teachers had tried to be subtle with their trick questions.

“Is there any answer to this that won't make one or both of you furious with me all over again?”

The girls exchanged glances.

“I told you he was smarter than he looked,” Ino told Sakura.

“But now we can't settle our bet,” Sakura complained.

“Uh... the doctor said I need lots of peace and quiet... so...” Naruto lied.

“All right. See you later.”

The girls left before his fragile body could be put in any more danger.

-o-

“Hey, loser.”

Sasuke walked in through the door without waiting for an invitation, a heavy bag in his right hand.

“What's up, moron?” Naruto gave the reply demanded by shinobi etiquette.

“I didn't want you to lose the pathetic little skill you have while you're stuck in here, so I checked out a few books from the library for you. Not that I expect you to be able to read, but you can at least have fun looking at the pictures.” Sasuke dumped the stack of books on Naruto's bedside table.

“Uh... thanks?”

Sasuke shrugged. “You're not much of a challenge, but I wouldn't want you to get even worse. See you, loser.”

Naruto looked through the books with his more usable hand. _Master Wu's Compendium of Fire Country Taijutsu. Meditation Exercises for the Chakra-Deficient. E-Rank Ninjutsu and You. Raiden Steelweaver and the Country of Zombies._

Naruto grinned and began to read.

-o-

Someone knocked on the door.

Naruto put his book down. “Come in!”

Hinata entered.

“Um, hi, Naruto. How are you feeling?”

“Not that bad, surprisingly,” Naruto smiled. “I'm even getting the feeling in my legs back, though part of me wishes I weren't.”

“Oh, that's terrible!”

“Don't worry about it.” The important thing, as far as Naruto was concerned, was that he'd probably make a full recovery. He'd healed from worse injuries than these before, though admittedly those had only come one or two at a time. And thanks to industrial doses of painkillers, he was merely suspended over a yawning abyss of agony rather than plummeting into its infinite depths. If he'd been on civilian analgesics rather than shinobi ones, he wouldn't even be conscious right now, but the latter were designed so ninja could deliver urgent information no matter how injured they’d got while obtaining it, and were doing an amazing job of keeping him lucid.

“Is there anything you need? I could go get you books. Oh, you already have books. What about food? Or... or a pen and paper? Anything at all.”

“Thanks, Hinata. How about a shogi board? Then you and I can have a game. If you want to, I mean.

“Thanks to you coming round so much,” Naruto added, “I realised how boring playing with myself all the time really was.”

Hinata gave him an uncertain look.

Naruto replayed his last statement in his head.

“With clones! I meant playing with my clones!”

Hinata giggled. “Yes, I can get us a board.

“By the way, what were you doing in the girls' section of the public baths?” she asked.

“Um.” Naruto's mind flashed back to the failed infiltration, and the motivations behind it. “Can we put that on the 'for another time' list?”

“Of course,” she said. “I'm very sorry Ino and Sakura hurt you like that.”

Naruto winced. “Yeah, well. I'm just glad _you_ didn't. You have actual taijutsu skills.”

“Why would I do that?”

Naruto gave her a confused look. “Why wouldn't you?”

After considering this question for a few seconds, Hinata went, “Oh!”

“What is it?”

“I keep forgetting,” she said. “Being seen naked by a boy is supposed to be a big deal, right?”

Naruto nodded, still at a loss. “Of course it is.”

Hinata frowned in concentration for a few seconds.

“Do you know how the Byakugan works, Naruto?”

“I know it lets you see through solid objects and see people's chakra, and I know it gives you a wider visual range than normal eyesight.”

“That’s right. When it’s on, you have 360-degree vision over a very large area. You still have one point of focus, like normal sight, but you see everything else at the same time in a sort of peripheral vision. I think that’s as much as I’m allowed to talk about with non-Hyūga.”

“OK?”

“So imagine living somewhere everybody can do that whenever they like.”

“...Ah.”

“Yes,” Hinata said. “We do have ways of respecting each other’s privacy, but they aren’t anything to do with clothing. As soon as your Byakugan awakens, you can see that everybody’s bodies are more or less the same anyway. You have to keep reminding yourself that you’re not supposed to know what someone’s body looks like unless you’re, um, intimate with them.”

Naruto reluctantly took this in. “So you didn’t cover up when you saw me looking at you just because you don’t have that reflex.”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Maybe he'd been wrong about Hinata liking him after all. It made sense, of course. He’d been an idiot to get his hopes up in the first place.

“Um... did I say something wrong?” Hinata asked uneasily.

“No, not at all,” Naruto forced himself to smile. “Uh, it's pretty late, and I'm feeling kind of tired, so would you mind if we called it a night?”

“Of course,” Hinata said. “Sleep well.”

And with that, she walked out, closing the door very gently after herself.

-o-

The next morning, Naruto got another visitor. Iruka-sensei came in with an expression of guilty concern and a bulging bag of fruit.

“I'm sorry it took me so long to come visit, Naruto. I only heard about what happened to you this morning.”

“Oh, that's OK, Iruka-sensei. I'm just glad you came.”

Naruto meant it. No matter what else happened in his life, Iruka-sensei was a rock-solid pillar of stability, a guaranteed source of affection, sympathy, and occasional ramen. He was the one person Naruto hated himself a little for deceiving.

“I’m sorry for what Sakura and Ino did to you,” Iruka-sensei said. “As an instructor, it should have been my responsibility to teach them better than that. You’re not trainees any more, and hospitalising a fellow member of the armed forces is a court-martial offence.”

Naruto blanched. It wasn’t that he enjoyed being beaten to within an inch of his life, but that didn’t mean he wanted the two girls stripped of their ninja status, or imprisoned, or whatever happened to people found guilty in a court martial. Especially given that he _had_ , when it came down to it, been the one to provoke them.

“The Hokage stepped in, though,” Iruka-sensei went on. “They _did_ only just graduate, and they both have good Academy records, so he’s put them on probation. I’m sure they’ve been punished as well, but that’s between them and the Hokage’s Office.

“Now, I do have to tell you,” Iruka-sensei's voice turned stern, “that peeping on girls in the bath is unethical and ungentlemanly, and I hope you realise that what you did was very wrong. Do you understand?”

“Absolutely,” Naruto said in his best contrite voice. It wouldn’t have fooled the likes of Old Man Hokage for a second, but Iruka-sensei’s basic faith in human nature made him an easy mark as authority figures went.

“Good. I've brought you some healthy fruit and vegetables—make sure you eat them all so you recover faster. And do everything the doctors and nurses tell you to. They've got your best interests at heart.”

Naruto nodded obediently. His experiences had led him to place medical professionals in the less awful category of adults. He didn’t know if it was their oaths or the fact that they’d chosen a line of work that was specifically about helping people, or some other reason, but they never took the obvious opportunities to mistreat him when some accident or “accident” put him in their care. Or maybe like Hinata said, when you’d seen the insides of so many people, you realised how similar they really were, and superficial differences like being the host for a supernatural murder machine stopped mattering so much.

“I'm sorry I can't stay,” Iruka-sensei said, “but class starts in half an hour. I'll try to come by when I can.”

“Thank you,” Naruto said with more sincerity than many people would get from him in their entire lives.

As the teacher headed towards the door, Naruto called after him.

“Iruka-sensei, did _you_ peep on girls in the bath when you were young?”

Iruka-sensei went red. “No, and it was wrong then, too!”

And he left the room just that little bit too fast.

-o-

The next visitors, to Naruto's surprise, were Kiba and Shino, together with Akamaru (who was apparently enough of a ninja to evade the blanket ban on pets). Kiba shoved the door open with an abundance of energy; Shino closed it carefully behind them.

                                            

“Hey, Naruto. How're you doing?”

Naruto waved within the limits of his bandage-restricted movement. “Not that bad. I think my spleen's no longer inside out. How about you?”

“I'm fine. Thanks for inviting us out yesterday. It was good to unwind.”

“Thank you for thinking of me,” Shino added in his usual strangely earnest voice.

“Man, I can't believe you got beaten up by Ino and Sakura of all people,” Kiba laughed.

“Hey, they got the first strike. I wasn't exactly in top form after the Kunoichi Special, know what I mean?”

Kiba winced and Shino shuddered.

“Listen,” Kiba said, “we've got something serious to talk about.”

“What's that?”

“I've been smelling your scent all over Hinata lately. Now, I don't mind, and frankly this may be the first time I’ve seen her properly happy, but I want you to remember:”

Naruto felt a chill.

“If you hurt her, in any way, they will never find your body,” Kiba told him, looking him straight in the eye.

“Why?” Shino added, “Because I will feed it to my insects.”

“Way to ruin a great threat, genius!” Kiba snapped.

“On the contrary, I believe mine was more original and had greater impact,” Shino retorted.

“Anyway,” Kiba turned back to Naruto. “We've got a mission coming up, so we should go. We've been preparing for this one—that damn cat won't know what hit it. Right, Akamaru?”

“Woof!”

“We will return at another time,” Shino said.

As they walked out, Naruto could hear them bickering over the best way to threaten someone.

-o-

“Oh, hi, Kakashi-sensei.”

“Good afternoon, Naruto. How are you feeling?”

“All right. How are you?”

“Glad to hear it,” Kakashi-sensei replied. “Now I should tell you that I'm very disappointed in your behaviour yesterday. It was conduct entirely unbecoming of a genin under my tutelage.”

“I'm sorry, Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto said, less contritely this time.

Kakashi-sensei continued his rebuke in a softer voice. “What possessed you to position yourself right next to the bath? If you wanted to peep on them from a secure location, why not transform into a ceiling light, or a wall fixture at a safe distance? Nothing is more important than managing lines of sight and minimising opportunities for interaction.”

Naruto's jaw dropped.

“You still have much to learn, Naruto. But don't give up. I believe in your potential,” Kakashi-sensei added at normal volume.

“Also, there's some very simple training you can do to mute the pain from injuries to your shadow clones. Remind me to show you once you're back on your feet.

“I'll check in on you in a few days. Get well soon.”

-o-

Naruto was feeling a lot better by the time Hinata came by in the early evening. Not only were his injuries considerably less painful than before, but Chōji and Shikamaru had dropped by with some sweets and manga for him. He didn't really know Shikamaru, and had a feeling the bored-looking boy would just as soon have stayed home, but the fact that he'd come anyway was appreciated.

Naruto had spent some time pondering the mysterious and conflicting evidence regarding Hinata after his eyes got too tired for reading. On the one hand, she was happy to spend lots of time around him, far more than anyone else he knew. She apparently had dreams about him. She had an almost scarily high opinion of him (Naruto _was_ awesome, but having other people acknowledge this was an alien experience.)

On the other hand, in all the time they'd known each other, she'd never said or done anything obviously romantic. She certainly didn't behave _anything_ like Sakura or Ino, his only real-life references for girls in love. She didn't even seem put out by the knowledge that he regularly asked another girl out (admittedly with zero success).

In the end, he couldn’t make head or tail of it all, and he couldn’t ask anyone for advice because then he’d have to explain what it was he and Hinata did together. There was nothing for it but to shelve the whole thing until he could gather more clues.

“So,” he beckoned to her, “ready to resume your training?”

“Yes, Naruto-sensei!”

He did a double-take.

“Say that again.”

“Yes, Naruto-sensei?” Hinata repeated.

“Wow. That sounds even better than I thought. No wonder so many people become ninja instructors.”

Hinata smiled. “Shall we play?”

“Sure!”

Naruto's concentration wasn't at its peak thanks to his injuries, and his mind wandered more than usual. As a result, there was more small talk with Hinata than he was used to. He noticed that she still carefully avoided any mention of her home life, but they did share a lot of laughs over the universal suffering of D-rank missions. Apparently the Team Eight experience involved Kiba regularly trying to bait Shino, and Shino being stoic and serious and strait-laced and generally exactly the kind of person who drove Kiba crazy. Captain Kurenai sensibly adopted a hands-off policy when it came to this sort of thing, which left Hinata trying to refocus the boys' attentions on the task at hand whenever Kiba started to mess around and Shino started to get lost in thought. Naruto felt a nice warm glow when Hinata told him that the training, despite the lack of easily quantifiable progress, was already making her more confident when dealing with her teammates. It hadn't occurred to him that making a sustained effort to change, even before she saw results, would already be enough to make such a difference to her mental state.

When Hinata left, Naruto made some notes (using the pen and paper she'd brought him even though he'd forgotten to ask for them), and then found himself looking thoughtfully at the enormous stack of books, manga and fruit on his bedside table. It seemed strange how here he was in hospital with a broken everything (he'd asked one of the nurses, and she secretly admitted this _was_ an unofficial diagnosis where ninja were concerned) and he was still feeling happier than he thought he'd ever felt before.


	5. Chapter 5

“Aha! You just fell into my cunning trap!” Naruto proclaimed, lifting a captured shogi piece with a dramatic flourish. “Bid your knight farewell. He serves a darker power now.”

“Um... actually, Naruto, I was rather hoping you'd do that...”

Naruto and Hinata were so engrossed in their latest game that they barely registered the door opening, or the doctor walking in, looking up only when the man gave a polite cough.

To Naruto's horror, it was the black-bearded man from before. To Naruto's even greater horror, Hinata looked up, exclaimed “Uncle Saburō!”, and proceeded to run over and hug him with no regard for the very fundamental principles of public decency, or the fact that Naruto had been about to reveal his devastating counter-counter-trap which would shatter Hinata's offensive strategy to smithereens and usher in a thousand years of darkness.

“It's good to see you too, Lady Hinata,” the man smiled. “I trust you are well?”

“Yes, thank you. And you?”

“I'm managing. Now if you don't mind, I need to speak to the young man in private.”

Hinata nodded and abandoned Naruto to his fate.

“I see my first impression of you was correct,” the doctor told Naruto as soon as Hinata closed the door. “Already peeping on girls in the public baths at your age? You truly are a criminal through and through.”

“It was all a misunderstanding!” Naruto once again insisted. Well, it _was_. He'd been there on an intelligence-gathering mission, not because the sight of naked girls was somehow inherently worth the risk of grievous bodily harm.

“I see. And the fact that Lady Hinata happened to be there at the time was surely a complete coincidence.”

“Absolutely,” Naruto said in the most even voice he could muster. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to read the man, and had a horrible feeling he’d been drawn into a game for which he did not know the rules.

“I have been terribly remiss in my manners,” the doctor said apropos of nothing. “My name is Kurogane Saburō. I am a senior physician here at the hospital. Normally, I invest some effort into getting to know people I expect to be frequent patients, but things have been very busy lately.”

Frequent patients? Naruto felt he couldn’t let a comment like that go by unquestioned, but Dr Kurogane moved on before he had a chance.

“Yes, very busy. Tell me, are you familiar with Spontaneous Chakra Combustion Disease?”

Naruto shook his head.

“Pray that you never have to be, young man. We're going to have to remodel an entire ward.”

Naruto nodded mutely. He was trying hard not to imagine what Spontaneous Chakra Combustion Disease might be like, and failing miserably.

“But that's by the by. While we are building rapport, allow me to share some entirely unrelated items of trivia with you.” Kurogane smiled at him in a fashion that should have been friendly but came off more like an alligator watching to see if its prey would shake off its fear paralysis and try to flee. “Did you know that, statistically speaking, a given shinobi will end up in our hospital at least three times a year? Of course, the rate is much higher for genin and other high-risk categories.”

“No, I didn't,” Naruto responded uneasily. The man seemed like an ordinary doctor, his manner calm and almost casual. Why did he feel like an invisible trap was slowly closing around him?

“Nothing more than an interesting statistic,” Kurogane said. “Another curious fact of medicine is that doctors have notoriously bad handwriting—ironic given how essential precision is in our profession, wouldn’t you say? Perhaps you have heard the urban legend of the doctor who, presumably while highly stressed, incorrectly recorded a shinobi’s status with regard to anaesthesia and painkillers. He wrote _proscribed_ rather than _prescribed_ , a single letter’s difference, but as a result the patient in question was forced to endure every single injury, disease and operation with full consciousness and sensation.”

He paused to allow this idea to sink in.

“Some versions of the story say the patient went insane and took his own life, while others merely claim he retired from the ninja profession and lived out a more-or-less fulfilling life as a waste disposal technician.”

“I—I see,” Naruto said, endeavouring to keep his voice steady. He'd never before had cause to so intensely regret the power of his imagination. If he’d had to endure the past week without any painkillers…

“But as I say, that's nothing but a myth. After all, no records remain of any such incident.

“Now, for a third piece of trivia, allow me to tell you a random fact about myself.”

Dr Kurogane gave a pleasant smile.

“Some years ago, I served as an assistant to the Hyūga Clan's private physician, a role which caused me to spend a great deal of time at the Hyūga compound, and to get to know its inhabitants. You could say I've watched Lady Hinata grow up ever since she was a little girl. And embarrassing though it is to admit, the thought of her coming to any sort of harm, or being mistreated in any way, causes me to feel very stressed indeed, to the point where my hands start to tremble in the middle of my work.”

Dr Kurogane looked down at Naruto. “I hope you feel a stronger bond between us after this little talk. I understand my bedside manner may be considered a little... unconventional, but I've never had any complaints.”

Naruto could do nothing but nod.

There was a shift in the doctor’s body language, subtle enough that even a ninja might have missed it, but it instantly transformed the man from a dangerous enigma into a trustworthy authority figure (insofar as that wasn’t an oxymoron).

“On an entirely unrelated note,” Dr Kurogane said lightly, “I am pleased—and, I will be honest, somewhat shocked—to inform you that you have been cleared to leave the hospital as early as tomorrow. Congratulations on having the most powerful regenerative ability I've ever seen outside of a Bloodline Limit. Since you are in a fit state to resume ninja missions, your captain has, of course, already been informed.”

Dr Kurogane inclined his head in farewell and walked out of the room before Naruto could recover his power of speech.

-o-

“Naruto, are you OK?” Hinata eyed him with concern.

 “Yeah, I'm fine,” Naruto said with his best casual smile. Apparently, he was now officially one slip-up away from being erased by the ever-growing Hinata Protection Squad, but he suspected that telling her this would be a bad move.

“Uncle Saburō didn't have bad news, did he?”

“No, no, not at all. Actually, he said I was free to go tomorrow.”

Hinata beamed. “Really? That's wonderful!”

Then she frowned. “But... didn't Sakura and Ino break most of the bones in your body? I saw one of the charts the nurses were carrying, with a list of fractures, and they had three extra sheets attached with a paperclip. I thought you'd be here for months.”

Naruto gave exactly the kind of shrug somebody would give when a topic of conversation was trivial and unworthy of further attention (AKA the “No, there’s no reason I’m carrying a bucket of fluorescent pink paint” shrug).

“I heal fast. It's a thing that happens sometimes with rare types of chakra.”

This was technically true. After noticing how incredibly fast he healed, Naruto had done some research, sneaking into public libraries and on one memorable occasion an unexpectedly well-guarded hospital. For a while, he even thought he'd found his father—some guy named Yakushi who was on record as having incredible regenerative powers since childhood—but Naruto doubted he'd been fathered by a seven-year old.

In any case, none of the descriptions of chakra-based regeneration quite matched up with the way his body healed. Since the only unique thing about his physiology was the Demon Fox, he concluded that it was probably in some way responsible, using its inhuman powers of chakra control to keep its home in good repair. This was not a theory he intended to share with Hinata or anyone else.

But Hinata didn't look convinced, so Naruto cast about for an excuse to change the subject.

“Hey, I know! Since I'm getting out of here tomorrow, how about I take you out for a meal tomorrow night to say thanks for coming to visit me every day?”

Hinata froze. “Me? For a meal?”

“Yeah. I know this great ramen place, and they even give me a discount for being a regular. You'll love it.”

“You mean... just the two of us? Going for dinner?” Hinata asked as if making sure she hadn't misheard.

“Well, yeah. I mean, we can invite some of the others along if you like, but I was thinking—”

“No!” Hinata interrupted with the urgency of a tranquiliser dart striking a tiger in mid-pounce. “I mean... that's OK. I'd like to... go for dinner with just you.”

“Great. Now I believe we had a game of shogi to finish.”

"Y-Yes, we did, didn't we? I, um, suddenly remembered a thing I need to do. Excuse me!"

“But we still haven’t—“

There was the dull thud of a closing door.

“—decided where and when to meet!”

-o-

It was a beautiful morning. The sun was shining, birds were singing, somewhere in the distance an irate old man was yelling at some kids for using his garden fence for shuriken practice, and even being intercepted by the rest of Team Seven before he could go home and finally have a meal that wasn't hospital food couldn't dispel Naruto's good mood.

“Hey, guys. What are you all doing here?”

“We have good news for you, Naruto,” Kakashi-sensei said. “After Sasuke heard you were cleared to resume doing missions today, he managed to wrangle a C-rank mission out of the Hokage to celebrate.”

“That's not what happened!” Sasuke immediately interjected. “I was just getting bored of D-rank missions, and I figured since Mummy Man here was getting his bandages removed, we'd finally have the numbers to do something more interesting.”

“A C-rank?” Naruto's eyes shone. “You mean something with real challenge? And real pay?”

“That’s right,” Kakashi-sensei nodded. “Drop by your house to pick up your gear, then meet us and the client at the main gate. We set off in an hour.”

“An hour?! What, don't I get any time to recover?”

“I'm afraid not. This mission is time-sensitive. We do it now, or we hand it over to another team and go back to D-rank work for a while. But don't worry—your doctor said that, in his professional opinion, your odds of mission survival are as good as the next man's.”

Naruto fervently hoped that said next man hadn't been one of the victims of Spontaneous Chakra Combustion Disease. Still, he did feel pretty good, especially for someone who'd apparently done months' worth of healing in little over a week. He ran home at top speed, revelling in his regained mobility.

He’d have to ask Hinata to reschedule, of course. But he didn’t want to have a shadow clone running around Leaf with half his chakra for however long it took to find her—not when there was an extra-challenging new mission about to begin—so he settled for writing her a sealed note to be handed over to the first Team Eight member the clone found. It was the most straightforward solution and, after all, what could possibly go wrong?

-o-

“So what's the mission?” Naruto asked Kakashi-sensei, looking around the gate area but seeing nothing except a pair of luckless chūnin stuck on guard duty, a farmer wrestling with an apathetic donkey hitched to a cart, and a drunken homeless man with a ridiculous hat sitting in the shade of the gate—in other words, nothing that resembled a client.

“Escort and protection,” Kakashi-sensei replied. “We're to escort the engineer Tazuna back to the Country of the Wave, and then stand guard against bandits and the like while his team finishes building a bridge. It seems they've been having a lot of trouble with banditry—I don't even know when I last heard of any traders coming out of Wave.

“This will be your first time leaving the Fire Country,” he added, “but don't worry. You shouldn't expect to face anything beyond your abilities. A well-trained genin is easily worth a dozen bandits.”

“So Naruto here must be worth at least two, then,” Sasuke commented.

“Might not matter,” Naruto struck back. “If it comes to a fight, I might face off with you instead. Bandits are all supposed to be butt-ugly and fight like they’re blind drunk, so how am I supposed to tell the difference?”

His Wrath-of-Sakura sense suddenly tingling, he quickly looked for a way to divert her attention. “So, Kakashi-sensei, where is this Tazuna, anyway?”

The stratagem worked. “Oh, yeah,” Sakura asked, “where _is_ he? Don't tell me he comes from the Hatake School of Punctuality.”

Kakashi-sensei pointed to the drunken homeless-looking man. “That would be him. Remember, he's paying our fees, so treat him with respect.”

Tazuna staggered into an upright position, a gourd of saké in one hand. “What? You're finally here? Great. So where's your ninja team?”

Kakashi-sensei bowed his head respectfully. “This is it.” He pointed to each member in turn. “Meet Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto. They are extremely capable ninja with the finest combat training.”

Tazuna choked on his drink.

“Excuse me? This little bunch of runts is going to be all that stands between me and certain death? How about I cancel this mission right now and go take my business to Hidden Mist?”

In a flash, Sasuke was behind him, a kunai at his throat. “You would be wise not to underestimate us, old man.”

Kakashi-sensei’s hand twitched in what looked like a suppressed facepalm. “Sasuke, don't antagonise the client. Master Tazuna, please don't make assumptions based on their age.”

Sasuke reluctantly withdrew the kunai and returned to the rest of the team.

“Our genin are as strong as those of any other village, and more than sufficient for your needs. I assure you that you won't get any higher ranks of ninja for the fees you're willing to pay.”

Tazuna seemed mollified. “All right. Guess I'll just have to make the best of it. Let's go, runts.”

-o-

A good start, Naruto decided, would be to pump the client for information—and get all the mission info he'd missed out on straight from the horse's mouth.

“Hey, old man. What's up with this bridge you're building? Why would bandits care about some piddly little bridge?”

“You bite your tongue, runt!” Tazuna glared at him. “My bridge is going to be a miracle of engineering that revitalises the Wave economy in ways you can't imagine! It'll be the end of Ga—of the bandits' domination of our country's trade routes. It'll single-handedly put the Country of the Wave back on the map!”

“What's so awesome about Wave, then?” Naruto innocently asked.

“Hah!” Tazuna barked. “What's so awesome about Wave, he says. In the old days, our fish went to the table of every nobleman on the continent. Your Fire Country nobles would pay a mint for top-quality saltwater fish—I guess living in the middle of a forest all your life will do that to you. And the rest! Pearls the size of your fist! And in your case, probably your brain, too!”

Naruto gave Tazuna his best death stare, but did not interrupt.

“Rare wood the likes of which you can't get anywhere on the mainland! And the landscapes! We could've bought your little village ten times over with the annual income from the tourist industry alone!”

“So what happened?”

Tazuna deflated all at once. “Bandits happened. They cut off all our shipping routes to the mainland, demanded tribute, and drained the country dry. We had to work miracles to let me make my escape.”

He took a big swig from his gourd. “But once the bridge is complete, none of that will matter anymore. We'll make that bas—those bastards pay.”

Sakura and Sasuke—also assigned to stay close to the client while Kakashi-sensei scouted ahead—were now listening as well. Sasuke had drawn a kunai, and was playing with it idly as they walked.

“Why won't it matter?” Sasuke asked. “What's to stop the bandits from just seizing the bridge once we leave?”

“Me,” Tazuna thrust his chest out proudly. “I haven't just been hiring the world's most overpriced bodyguards. I've been securing preliminary deals with merchants and mercenaries left, right and centre. The second that bridge is up, the cargo starts moving—everything the bandits haven't managed to steal has been saved up for that day. And once the first payment gets in, we'll be able to hire enough mercenaries to tide us over until Wave can afford to train and equip its own standing army. Once that's done, no scumbag's ever going to take over my home again!”

“Rebuilding and revenge. I like it.” Sasuke, at the front of the party, flipped the kunai in mid-air a few times, then spun it high over his head and turned towards the others, his back to the road, to catch it. As it fell, he put his hands out in front of his chest, and quickly made the hand signals for _Don't react_ , _Ambush ahead_ and _Water_ before grabbing it out of the air. He turned back around as if nothing had happened.

“Show-off,” Naruto said. “Anyone can juggle kunai like that. Check _this_ out.” He got out his own kunai and started to imitate Sasuke, trying to look like a carefree genin out on his first mission and oblivious to the possibility of danger. At the same time, he scoped out the area. Kakashi-sensei was nowhere to be seen, having gone on ahead to scout. That limited the possibilities to three: either he'd missed the ambush, or he'd left it for them deliberately, as combat practice or as a test, or it had been set up after he passed. And if he hadn’t left it deliberately, that would mean they were dealing with an enemy smart enough to ignore the jōnin and wait for the more vulnerable targets—or worse, an enemy sneaky enough to bypass him altogether and _then_ prepare an ambush.

So where were they? “Water”? There were two puddles in the middle of the road up ahead, which was a little odd since the rest of the area so far had been completely dry. Thanks to the lack of windows in his hospital room, he had no idea about recent weather, but he certainly couldn't remember anyone wearing raincoats or carrying umbrellas when visiting him. Besides, he couldn't see anything else out of place, and he didn't think Sasuke could be _that_ much more observant than him.

By this point, Sakura had also taken out her kunai, and was attempting to spin it in her hand nonchalantly. The team was now armed and ready. While Tazuna unsurprisingly had no clue what was going on, he seemed to have got the general idea of behaving naturally while gradually moving behind Sakura (who was in turn behind Naruto and Sasuke).

“I bet you can't keep up with _this_ , Naruto!” Sasuke shouted, throwing two kunai up in the air while drawing a third. The kunai traced a high arc before each came down in the middle of a puddle.

Clang!

A clawed gauntlet shot up from each puddle, knocking the kunai away.

Two ninja in sinister, ragged black outfits, with headbands bearing a crossed-out Mist symbol, rose from the rippling surface of the water. Their stance was low, leaning forward, ready to spring at the target while exposing a minimal surface area to attack, and stretched between them, connecting one’s right-arm gauntlet to the other’s left, was a rapidly vibrating chain covered with razor-sharp blades.

Naruto went cold. It wasn't just that the attackers were ninja rather than mere bandits, or that the scratch marks across their headbands marked them as missing-nin who had abandoned their villages out of treachery or to escape punishment for some terrible crime. It wasn't even that their body language suggested extensive combat experience—more like chūnin than genin. It was the fact that the peculiar weapon they wielded spoke volumes about their ability. Whip- and chain-type ninja tools, never mind _vibrating, bladed_ _ones_ , were rare because they made it so easy to hurt oneself far more than the enemy. Only the most skilled fighters could wield them safely—and conversely, their rarity meant that there was hardly any training on how to combat them.

Naruto had very little time to think. The flexible, extendable chain would double for both attack and defence. It would be most effective against a flanked enemy, and conversely let them perfectly protect each other's flanks. They would have to be skilled taijutsu users, in which case the kunai in their off-hands could comfortably protect the outer sides of the formation. They'd aim for the neck, severing the head quickly and moving on to the next target while maintaining momentum—getting the chain stuck in the torso would leave them too vulnerable, and they'd want to stay on the offensive because the chain made a cumbersome blocking tool if their enemies got a chance to counter.

His team was nowhere near equipped to fight these guys toe-to-toe. That meant he only had one chance to get things right, and it would take flawless tactics calculated to within a tiny fraction of a second.

Naruto charged the enemy ninja, waving his kunai wildly and screaming an incoherent battle cry.

They sprang into motion. They were as good as he'd expected—they must have been using some kind of chakra ability, because they were literally flying forwards, their feet staying in the air as if they'd pushed off the ground harder than physically possible. With the chain stretched out, they left Naruto and Sasuke with an impossible choice: take the attack head-on, instantly sealing their fates, or dive to the side, leaving a clear path to Sakura and Tazuna.

Naruto took a third option: he slipped in mid-charge.

Sliding forwards, screaming helplessly, his body nearly horizontal and his arms stretched out behind him, he watched the chain pass above him—and grabbed onto the left ninja's boot as it sailed over his head.

The enemy was no fool, and as soon as he felt himself losing balance, he made a subtle movement with his armoured hand. The chain disconnected from his arm, making sure he didn’t pass on the shift in momentum to his partner. The other ninja immediately copied him and the now-useless chain fell away.

However, Sasuke had started moving as soon as Naruto began to fall. He ran _past_ the ninja on the right, taking advantage of the man's suddenly unprotected left flank, with a kunai in a reverse grip in his right hand. With all the speed from both sides, a single slash was enough to open up the man's abdomen.

Sasuke spun around as he passed his target, and smoothly thrust the bloody kunai at the neck of the other ninja as the man was about to spring up from his fall. He stopped it just short of piercing the skin, and the enemy held still in an acknowledgement of surrender.

But as the right-hand ninja fell, he had the presence of mind for one last kunai throw, going straight for Tazuna—

Only to be deflected by a kunai in Tazuna's hand. There was a popping noise, and Tazuna vanished. Kakashi-sensei stood in his place, (probably) smiling.

“Good job, Team Seven. Secure the prisoner while I go get Tazuna from the bushes I Substituted him into. I think we need to have some serious words with our client.”

The whole battle had taken perhaps five seconds.

-o-

It was evening, and Takeda's Wayside Inn was host to the most quarrelsome party it had ever seen. A pink-haired girl was accusing a blond boy of “victory by epic pratfall” and calling him the worst excuse for a ninja that had ever lived. A black-haired boy was accusing a white-haired man of putting lives in danger with absurd tests. The white-haired man was ignoring him and accusing a drunken old man of withholding vital information and attempting to cheat the Village Hidden in the Leaves. And no one was sure what the tied and gagged black-haired man was accusing them all of, but his muffled imprecations were certainly very passionate.

Eventually, things simmered down.

“I'm sorry, Tazuna,” Kakashi-sensei said, “but if this Gatō is wealthy enough to hire the Demon Brothers to assassinate you, and you think he has the budget for jōnin as well, then that pushes this into a high B-rank mission, maybe even an A. If you can't pay, we can't work.”

“You're sending me to my death. You do know that?” Tazuna scowled.

“I am well aware,” Kakashi-sensei replied coolly. “I take no pleasure in it. But if we allow our village to be cheated even once, we're threatening the very lifeblood on which its survival depends. You should consider yourself fortunate that we're not seeking retribution for the danger in which you put my team with your lies.”

Naruto knew everything Kakashi-sensei was saying was true. At the same time, he didn’t want his long-awaited first C-rank mission to end so soon, and while there was nothing about the cantankerous old man that made Naruto desperate to risk his life for him, the idea of walking away and letting him die, just like that, left a bitter taste in his mouth.

There was a solution, he realised, one which it had been strange for Tazuna to overlook. “Kakashi-sensei’s right. If you'd cheat us, I bet you'd cheat all those people you promised trading discounts or whatever instead of money too.”

“Hey, you keep your damn mouth—wait a second!” Tazuna's face lit up. “That's it! I know I can't pay you for this mission rank, but I _am_ permitted to offer preferential trading terms. Once the bridge is up, Wave is going to rock the international markets. You could make this mission's costs back a thousandfold!”

Kakashi-sensei gave this due consideration. “I'm not authorised to make that call. But I can send a messenger back to the Hokage and get an official judgment. Write out your initial offer, and I suggest you make it generous since you started out by dealing in bad faith.”

“Kakashi-sensei,” Sasuke said, “how do we know we can trust them? They can easily promise us the moon now, and then betray us once they've got their bridge and their wealth.”

“Actually, they can't,” Kakashi-sensei explained. “They're effectively going to be a new player on the international market. No one will know them, at least in their new incarnation. They'll need to build their reputation from zero as a trustworthy partner in order to succeed. One word from an established player like Leaf accusing them of reneging on a deal, and they'll find themselves a pariah. No one will want to risk dealing with them, and their economy will crumble as surely as if Gatō was still in control.”

-o-

After Tazuna finished writing out a scroll of incomprehensible business-legalese, and Kakashi-sensei dispatched a small dog (which he claimed was a highly-trained ninja summon beast) to carry it back to Leaf along with a request for pickup of the missing-nin prisoner, Naruto took the opportunity to go to Kakashi-sensei’s room and ask a question that had been bugging him. A question he'd been ridiculously, unspeakably stupid not to ask straight away.

“Say, Kakashi-sensei, how come the Shadow Clone Technique is a forbidden technique, anyway?”

Kakashi put away his book and turned to face him. “It isn't. Only the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique is forbidden. As for why... hmm, this will take a bit of explaining.”

“Please.”

“All right. Do you know how shadow clones are different to normal clones?”

Naruto scrunched up his face as if in intense thought.

“Normal clones pop when you touch them, while shadow clones pop only when they take a solid hit. Normal clones only do what you... uhh... pro-gram them to do when you make them, while shadow clones think for themselves. And normal clones only take the chakra you put in them when you use the technique, while shadow clones take an equal share of all your chakra. Is that right?”

Kakashi-sensei (probably) smiled. “Very good. But there's one more vital difference. When a shadow clone pops, what happens to its chakra?”

“I get it back.” Which was weird when you thought about it, for all sorts of reasons. “Or if I have more shadow clones, it gets shared out between all of us.”

“Exactly. I see you've really been paying attention.”

Naruto mentally kicked himself. He urgently needed to dumb down before Kakashi-sensei got suspicious, but at the same time he needed to get his answers.

“So,” Kakashi-sensei continued, “the thing about shadow clones is that it's not just chakra that gets sent back. It's experience too. When one pops, you get some of its pain—as you've learned all too well—but also everything it experienced during its existence. Its memories become your memories.”

Naruto tried to keep a neutral expression on his face. That fit with his observations, but also left him unable to answer the two obvious questions it would imply: why didn't everyone learn the Shadow Clone Technique as soon as they could? And why didn't ninja rule the entire known world?

The hard part would be to ask Kakashi-sensei without further inflaming his suspicions.

“You get its memories? You mean I could've had a clone sit in class at the Academy and do all my learning for me while I went outside and had fun?”

“The Shadow Clone Technique is supposed to be far above genin level, so an Academy trainee wouldn't know it, but in theory, yes.”

“So then I could've had a bunch of clones taking all the different classes at once, and graduate before everyone else? Without ever having to go to the Academy at all?”

Kakashi-sensei looked at him closely. “That is where things get tricky. You know how subjects you're familiar with are much easier to study than new ones? Say, how you'd find it much easier to read a book about shuriken than a book about the history of the Warring Clans period?”

“Yeah, I think so. Except books are boring, so I wouldn’t read them in the first place.” That was it. A few more openings like that, and Naruto would soon make up for lost ground.

Kakashi-sensei didn't dignify this with a comment. “The reason is that when you learn new things, your brain needs time and energy to process them. And the more unfamiliar the new information, the more time and energy you need.”

Naruto nodded. This made sense.

“Now... what happens when you send one of your shadow clones to read a book about taijutsu, and another to read a book about medicine, and a dozen others to read other books, and then dispel them?”

“Your brain will have to work really, really hard to deal with all that knowledge at once?”

“Yes. This is less of an issue in combat, because all your clones will be having similar experiences, both to each other and to what you already know. It can also be safe in training, if every clone is doing the same sort of thing. But unless you're very careful, there are plenty of circumstances where the information overload from dispelling a lot of clones at once can knock you out, or even put you in a coma. That's why ninja don't just send their shadow clones to the library and become instant experts in everything.”

“Oh. So the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique is forbidden because... um...”

Kakashi-sensei sat there and waited patiently. It was surprising how good his explanations were, Naruto reflected. Typically, the more talented the teacher, the more they expected you to grasp things instantly the way they did—which was fine for Naruto, who reckoned himself more gifted than any ninja who would settle for a teaching job, but a source of agony for his idiot persona.

But Kakashi-sensei had given him the information, clearly and concisely, and now he was giving him the time to work through it. The man had failed every potential team he’d ever tested, and had doubtless expected to keep failing them until the end of time. Why would he have made the effort to learn how to teach?

That was probably enough thinking time. There was an art to coming across as slow, but no so slow as to be unfit for duty.

“...because the more clones you have, the easier it is to push your brain too far?”

“Exactly. Never forget this. If I'd known this warning wasn't in the original scroll, I would have told you much sooner,” Kakashi-sensei stated seriously.

Naruto shivered. He’d come so close to destroying himself with his own gift for optimisation.

“Does this mean I should never teach it to anyone?”

“The short answer is 'yes',” Kakashi-sensei replied. “The long answer is that we have plenty of time on this trip, so I can go through what you know and figure out the differences between it and my own—normal—Shadow Clone Technique. Once I do that, I can tell you which parts you can teach and which parts you should keep to yourself. I can also tell you the common sense rules for teaching it. For example, you never teach a true clone technique to people with certain psychological problems.”

“What do you mean?” Naruto had a sudden sense that he was treading on forbidden territory and should back away while it was still safe. But he needed to know.

“Unlike normal clones, which are mindless constructs run by basic artificial intelligence—what we call clone AI for short—shadow clones have minds which are copies of your own mind. They want what you want. What happens if you want to hurt yourself?”

Naruto thought about this. “That's... horrible.”

It belatedly occurred to him that the more believable response for a perpetually cheerful boy like him was probably “Why would someone want to hurt themselves?”, but Kakashi-sensei didn't seem to notice.

“It's happened,” Kakashi-sensei went on. “Normally, by the time you learn the Shadow Clone Technique, you are a jōnin, with the experience to know who can and can't be taught. You, Naruto, will have to show just as much discretion.”

Naruto felt a chill run through him. He'd wanted to teach it to Hinata to help her training, but now...

“That's enough of that for the time being,” Kakashi-sensei (probably) smiled. “You need to know how to mute the pain from damage to your shadow clones. The training has two steps.”

“What are those?”

“Step One: Learn a basic mental technique and practise it until you can do it reflexively.”

“That doesn't sound so bad. I have amazing reflexes!” Naruto made an exaggerated fake taijutsu move. Messing with Kakashi-sensei aside, his mental reflexes were worthy of Uzumaki Naruto himself—you didn’t spend a lifetime deceiving every single person around you without learning to give the right responses instantly and without thinking.

“Now, for Step Two...” Kakashi-sensei paused. There was a worrying glint in his eye.

He raised his voice. “Sakura, can you come in here?”

Sakura's room was next door (with Naruto and Sasuke sharing the next one down, despite vocal complaints), so they didn’t have long to wait.

“What is it, Kakashi-sensei?”

“Sakura, I need you to help Naruto with his training.”

Sakura shuddered. “I’m not going to have to try to tutor him, am I?”

Kakashi-sensei was unfazed. “Naruto is going to make perfect copies of himself, and I need you to destroy them as painfully as possible.”

“Kakashi-sensei, you're the best teacher ever!” Sakura was suddenly giddy with excitement.

“Uh, are you absolutely sure this is the only way?” Naruto quickly asked, turning from her to Kakashi-sensei, his voice about an octave above normal.

Naruto felt Sakura put her hand on his shoulder. He turned back around to see that sweet, innocent look on her face which he'd come to dread above all others.

“Don't worry, Naruto... I'll be gentle.”

-o-

Kakashi considered Naruto’s night-time training an unmitigated success. After only a single night, the boy had become able to endure a clone being destroyed with One Thousand Years of Death, the most terrifying taijutsu technique of its kind, with nothing more than a disturbed shudder. He also flinched whenever Sakura brought out her bottle of nail polish remover (which she periodically did, with a smile, even though she wasn’t wearing any nail polish). Now Kakashi thought about it, Ibiki was always looking for new apprentices.

The downside was that Naruto’s coping mechanisms were making this a very long morning. Given that he was staying well away from both Kakashi and Sakura, and Tazuna was distracted by complex financial calculations in his head, that left Sasuke as Naruto’s only viable target. Sasuke, who apparently had his own bone to pick with Naruto, was giving as good as he got, leaving Kakashi to suffer through a stereo squabble that had over the past few hours gone from secretly amusing to tiresome to making him wonder whether the Hokage would accept gags as improvised training tools.

“I swear, Naruto, if you keep going on about your manga, I'm going to take this kunai and shove it right up—”

“Enough chatter, you two,” Kakashi snapped. “Stay alert. I don't like this mist.”

It was an understatement. The team were walking through a clearing next to a small lake, and while one minute the air was perfectly clear, in the next a heavy mist had settled over every last inch of the area. Not long after Kakashi's rebuke, it became so thick the group could barely see each other.

It was easy to be paranoid in this sort of environment, and everyone had kunai out within seconds.

“Get in formation,” Kakashi ordered. “These conditions are perfect for an am—”

Suddenly, there was an odd sort of choked gurgling noise from Tazuna's direction. Kakashi couldn't see him, but the sound told him everything he needed to know.

It was the sound of a thrown kunai piercing a throat.


	6. Chapter 6

Before Kakashi could react, there was another noise, this one no less horrible: the unmistakable sound of a large blade cleaving through flesh. Three times. Only incredible reflexes allowed him to bring up his own kunai in time to block, leaving him struggling to hold back the weight of the attacker's sword.

“Wind Element: Squall Technique!”

A blast of pressurised air swept through the clearing, instantly wiping away the mist. The attacker's balance faltered for a split second. Since Kakashi had expected the technique, he was ready to take advantage of the opening. He ducked under the sword as he brought his kunai up and through his enemy's stomach. He felt a rush of liquid down his hands. At the same time, a series of four popping noises resounded in quick succession around him.

“You live up to your reputation, Hatake 'Sharingan' Kakashi,” a deep male voice commented.

Kakashi looked up to see his attacker, perfectly alive, standing on a high tree branch across the clearing, near the lake. A tall, well-muscled man, bare-chested and wearing grey camouflage gear on his limbs, he carried an enormous broadsword with a large circular hole near the top of the blade. Despite the white half-mask covering the lower part of his face, a sure sign of good taste in shinobi gear, the crossed-out Mist symbol on his headband and the unique weapon made him instantly recognisable.

Kakashi quickly glanced around. Just as planned, his team were standing around him in perfect formation. Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi Prime were all in aggressive stances with weapons out. At a nod from the original, the clone dispelled himself.

“Momochi 'Demon' Zabuza,” the real Kakashi replied. “One of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen, and master of Silent Killing and Water Element techniques. It seems Gatō is really pulling out all the stops on this one.”

“You sent a squad of shadow clones out as bait, knowing that you'd realise the instant one was destroyed, and had your real squad ready to take me out before I noticed that there was no sound of bodies hitting the ground,” Zabuza observed. “I like your style. If that hadn't been a water clone, I'd be dead five ways by now.”

There was no reply. Kakashi was busy analysing the terrain and estimating how much chakra he could spend on this fight. He also had to consider his team’s mental state. Musclebound heavy-hitters were nothing special in the shinobi world, but Zabuza’s true danger was said to lie in his mastery of psychological warfare. Even a powerful ninja might fall prey to fear when Zabuza ceased to be a swordsman and became a deadly predator stalking them unseen and unheard.

“Of course,” Zabuza went on, “if that hadn't been a water clone, it would have been me, and then _you'd_ all be dead by now. Or at least your little genin would. They look like they've come straight from Leaf's ninja school, not waded through rivers of blood to get here like you and me, Kakashi.”

Kakashi could see them beginning to freeze up as waves of Zabuza’s casual bloodlust began to erode their composure. He couldn’t allow that to happen. He needed Zabuza to be wary of the genin, forcing him to split his attention—locked into combat with Kakashi as the greatest threat, while having to constantly watch his back at the same time. But if Zabuza could take them out of the fight right now, he could then dictate the flow of the battle by forcing Kakashi to protect them, turning the team’s superior numbers from an advantage into a deadly weakness.

“Don't let him get to you,” Kakashi said firmly. “Psychological warfare is one of the basic weapons of the shinobi. If he can convince you that you're weaker than you really are, he's already won.”

“You think I'm trying to screw with their minds?” Zabuza laughed. “Why would I bother? Their lives are already forfeit—I'm just letting them die with their eyes open. Let them see how they have been sent to certain death, their lives traded for money as one resource for another, while their leaders continue to preach of ‘loyalty’ and ‘bonds’.”

Kakashi’s childhood had been devoured by war, together with his friends and his illusions. Zabuza was a man of the same generation, doubtless forged in the same fires. On some level, Kakashi had more in common with this remorseless killer than with the innocents the Hokage had given to him to shape. For that reason, in the moment that would make or break his team’s morale, he found himself unable to look Momochi Zabuza in the eye and proclaim the truth and justice of the Will of Fire.

But before his hesitation could doom the team, salvation came from the most unexpected quarter.

“I know what you're doing,” Naruto exclaimed, “because I have this secret Bloodline Limit too!”

He struck a dramatic manga-esque pose, hands cupped in front of his wide-open mouth as if preparing to project a sonic beam.

“Windbag Element: Endless Monologue Technique!”

Whatever tension had been filling the clearing abruptly vanished in favour of incredulity. Everyone, including Zabuza, stared at Naruto disbelievingly.

“Huh,” Naruto said. “Nothing happened.

“Oh, yeah,” he exclaimed as if struck by a revelation, “the Endless Monologue Technique doesn't actually do anything. It's just a way to enjoy the sound of my own voice. Then again, I'm only a doomed little genin. Maybe a jōnin like you can unlock its amazing hidden powers?”

He looked up at Zabuza. “Well? We're all waiting.”

There was silence for several seconds. Then there was a sudden “snerk” as Sasuke finally failed to suppress his laughter.

“Naruto, you are such a moron!” Sakura likewise gave up resisting the call of her most fundamental instincts.

Kakashi just rolled his eyes in resignation. He couldn't for the life of him remember what he'd done to the Hokage that was bad enough to deserve getting assigned this team.

After that, there was no possible room for verbal intimidation, so Zabuza didn’t waste any more time. He jumped off the tree branch—and straight onto the surface of the lake. His landing was so perfect that the surface barely rippled.

“Water Element: Water Clone Technique!”

Six identical Zabuzas rose from the surface of the water, indistinguishable from the original and fully sharing his death-promising aura. Moving with machine-like synchronisation, they turned as one and headed for the direction Team Seven had come from.

Kakashi’s firepower was orders of magnitude above what it would take to destroy some water clones. He turned towards them and started forming seals without hesitation.

He didn’t make it. The original Zabuza’s blade came down, and even with Kakashi’s speed he barely drew a pair of kunai in time.

“I don't think so, Kakashi. _I'm_ your opponent.”

With his momentum checked, Zabuza’s melee offensive turned into a conventional duel of strength versus speed. But before Kakashi could begin setting Zabuza up for a deadly ninjutsu combo, he had one urgent order to give.

“Intercept them before they find Tazuna!”

Zabuza snorted. “You're willing to sacrifice your genin team just to slow me down?” he asked loudly. “And here I'd been told Leaf had grown soft in its days of peace.”

“Don't listen to him!” Kakashi shouted at Team Seven's retreating backs. “Water clones only have a tenth of the original's power! You can do this!”

-o-

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura faced off against the six water clones, which had evidently decided to eliminate their pursuers early on rather than risk being backstabbed. Each one had a copy of Zabuza's huge sword, and a stance that spoke of decades of experience in using it to kill.

Things didn't look good. What did Kakashi-sensei mean about a tenth of the original's power? Were they a tenth as fast? A tenth as intelligent? Did they have a tenth of the original's chakra? Naruto needed more information, and he doubted that Zabuza’s water clones were the kind of ninja who loved explaining their abilities.

“Elemental clones are pre-programmed constructs,” Sasuke said quietly. There was an unhealthy trace of eagerness in his voice. “That means they can't think for themselves to adapt to new challenges. If we can take them by surprise, it won’t matter how strong they are.”

Naruto caught himself nodding before he could help it. It was at times like this that he found himself grate—less annoyed than usual at being on the same team as Sasuke. Sasuke would pick up on important things, and then explain them to Naruto and Sakura with various degrees of condescension, allowing Naruto to sit back and maintain his idiot act without compromising the team’s effectiveness.

But even though the clones were mentally more machine than man, in a way the team would still be stuck trying to outthink Zabuza. The jōnin had sent his clones on an independent mission, as opposed to the usual approach of using them as disposable materials for one-shot stratagems, and that suggested that he was a particularly skilled clone user. Using elemental clone techniques at a high level was incredibly hard, because you had to have a solid grasp of clone AI in order to devise effective behaviour patterns for them, and then you had to practise until you could create a clone with a complex program at a moment's notice without having to take time to concentrate. It was like trying to write a publishable academic treatise in your head, in a couple of seconds, under combat conditions.

In the absence of alternatives, Naruto had always relied heavily on clones for both training and technique testing. That meant having to put a lot of time and effort into studying clone AI—a hard task made harder still when all the useful guides were books he couldn’t afford to buy and wasn’t allowed to borrow. But shadow clones had the full formidable intelligence of Uzumaki Naruto himself, and that discovery had been liberating enough to make up for the fact that he’d apparently wasted years of effort on mastering a skill he would never need to use again.

Until now. As a competent clone user, Naruto could appreciate Zabuza’s level of mastery in a way that Sasuke couldn’t. It would be even worse if Zabuza was one of the select few who understood emergent behaviour. An elite clone user, Naruto knew from his reading, would emphasise high levels of basic abilities like dodging and taijutsu, and then program the clone to scan the situation for ways to combine them as effectively as possible. If an ordinary clone was a shogi player, with a list of move sequences and an algorithm telling it which one to apply at any given time, then a master’s clone was a martial artist constantly looking for openings and opportunities. These were scary, ANBU levels of skill, and Team Seven would have to push themselves to the limit to overcome them.

“Naruto,” Sasuke snapped him out of his contemplation. Quickly turning so that his hands couldn't be seen from the front, he made the hand signs for _Distraction_ , _Three_ and _Second_.

Naruto nodded. Surprise was still the clones’ greatest weakness, and Zabuza would rue the day he’d sent them to challenge the Number One Ninja at Surprising People.

“Uzumaki-style Ninjutsu: Harem Technique!”

A dozen naked girls appeared out of nowhere, all of them looking remarkably like an older, gender-swapped Naruto, and with curiously static wisps of cloud around certain parts of their anatomy. Naruto was instantly struck by a sharp wave of killing intent, and it took him a second to realise that it was coming not from the clones but from Sakura. Before she had time to comment, however, the girls had closed the distance to their targets, and were trying to drape themselves over the water clones with exclamations along the lines of “Oh, Master Zabuza, your sword is so big!” and “I've always had a thing for sextuplets!” There were at least three different puns on “wet”.

For obvious reasons, Zabuza had not programmed these clones to resist seduction. For a second, they froze, unsure what to do with very obviously unarmed women acting in a non-hostile (and in fact downright friendly) fashion. Then, moving as one, they destroyed them with precise hand strikes to vital areas, but the girls had already served their purpose.

“Fūma Shuriken!”

A great four-bladed shuriken flew towards the middle clone at chest level. It was about to duck under it, when one of the others, with a different angle of view, called out a warning. “Shadow Windmill!”

The targeted clone instantly changed its mind and stepped to the side. The shuriken flew past it harmlessly. So did the second one which had been hidden in its shadow, ready to decapitate a crouching opponent.

Then the explosive tag on the hidden shuriken detonated.

The dodging clone was instantly obliterated. As an added bonus, the force of the blast flung the original shuriken to the side, and into another clone, which exploded into a burst of water.

Sakura opened her mouth, probably to praise Sasuke’s skill, but a simulated Zabuza voice cut her off.

“Water Element: Concealing Mist Technique!”

Within seconds, visibility was down to zero. Naruto couldn’t see the rest of his team, never mind the enemy. Kakashi-sensei’s voice echoed in his mind. “A master of Silent Killing”. The art of tracking targets by sound alone while silencing your own movement and breathing, then killing them so quietly that nobody ever noticed until it was their turn.

The mist might as well have been a solid grey wall, wrapping around Naruto and taking away all sense of distance and direction. Somewhere out there, four clones were navigating it without effort, while Team Seven wouldn’t even know which way to flee. All Naruto could hear was his own heartbeat, steadily growing louder as the suspense mounted.

Louder with excitement.

Earlier, Zabuza had broken one of the cardinal rules of the ninja: he had let an enemy witness his speciality technique and live. And after hearing Kakashi-sensei’s shadow clones pop in Zabuza's mist the first time, Naruto had been preparing. In his mind, he divided the battlefield he remembered into a hexagonal grid.

“Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

A series of clones spread out through the mist. Some tripped and fell. Others ran into trees. It didn’t matter. Enough of them got in position and started running in circles (well, hexes) around each segment of the grid. Each sang whatever song it felt like at the top of its voice, and Naruto was a very, very bad singer. The cacophony was worse than that time he'd managed to plant a crate of fireworks labelled “tax ordinance paperwork” in the corner of the Hokage’s office, and later casually light the fuse while the Hokage was berating him for a different prank. (The Hokage had been very puzzled why Naruto was wearing earmuffs in midsummer.)

Naruto could barely hear himself think, much less listen to his surroundings. Let's see Zabuza track him or his teammates by sound now.

Unsurprisingly, he immediately felt one of his shadow clones get sliced in half. Then another. And another. And then...

“Gotcha.”

Naruto didn't say this out loud. Instead he said, “Shadow Clone Technique.”

A clone appeared next to him and instantly dispelled itself again. Its memories promptly transferred themselves to every other clone—and specifically the fact that there was a Zabuza clone at coordinate 16-D of the hexagonal grid.

Over a dozen shadow clones converged on that one point, and between their sheer numbers and the fact that the water clone was as blind as they were with all the noise, at least one kunai got through.

Three down, three to go.

The mist disappeared at once, the water clones abandoning a failed strategy with a speed of judgement that only reminded Naruto of the calibre of his opponent. The Zabuzas moved with the speed of hungry sharks, and Naruto’s grid-running clones disappeared so fast that for a moment his consciousness was one unbroken litany of sword cuts.

Once again, there was nothing between Team Seven and their enemies.

Then things went wrong.

Zabuza's clones moved in without hesitation. One went for each of the three genin, and Naruto no longer had the leisure to keep track of his teammates. He ducked under a swipe that would have shattered his skull, then barely managed to block a knee blow that would have crushed his ribs. It still sent him flying backwards, and he endured slamming his spine against a tree only through the padding of an emergency Shadow Clone Technique.

Zabuza's taijutsu and kenjutsu were devastating, and there was no possible way to fight back. It was all Naruto could do to avoid taking direct hits, and try to drag the battle out as long as possible in the hope that some opportunity would present itself. If the worst came to the worst, he could use some of _those_ techniques, but... but then they'd know. And he'd lose everything he'd spent years building up. It probably wasn't as bad as being eviscerated by Zabuza, but it came pretty damn close.

Sasuke was faring better, but not by much. He was more agile than Naruto, but Zabuza's ridiculously wide blade doubled as an effective shield, and the circular hole near the top allowed the clone to keep watching Sasuke while blocking, minimising the blind spot. Sasuke tried several times to stab his opponent through it, but Zabuza must have seen that trick coming, and his clone kept shifting its position and angle too fast to give Sasuke a chance.

And then, as Naruto was jumping back from a deadly swipe, and Sasuke was desperately recovering from a failed lunge, the third clone cut Sakura in half.

Or so it thought. The two halves of the log clattered to the ground as Sakura reappeared next to a tree a good distance away. She really was good at the Substitution Technique.

Zabuza was better. Another clone, taking a break from fighting Naruto, was waiting for her as she reappeared. With a single, casual movement, it smashed her head into the tree. Sakura fell, and stopped moving.

Sasuke was standing at an angle which let him see this, and his movements suddenly grew frenzied. His rapid kunai strikes actually broke his Zabuza’s momentum, and the second he made an opening, Sasuke leapt back.

“Fire Element: Great Fireball Technique!”

The clone had no room to dodge the enormous fireball coming towards it. Instead, it did something unexpected. It threw its sword at the flames. As it sailed through the air, the blade exploded into pure water, not quite quenching the fireball but shrinking it small enough for the clone to evade. With flawless coordination, one of the other clones threw it its own sword as a replacement.

It was simple, yet brilliant. Fire ninjutsu were always weak against Water ones, and _everything_ about Zabuza’s clones was a facsimile made out of water.

An enormous blade cut down as Sasuke, still running forwards to press his expected advantage, was unable to stop himself in time. It cut right through his shoulder—

And once again a bisected log tumbled to the ground.

In a flash, Sasuke appeared at the edge of the clearing. The unarmed clone was waiting for him, but before it could even begin to move, Sasuke disappeared again within the same instant.

He reappeared where he'd been before, sending half the log back to its original location. Before the clone could lift its sword, it found a kunai thrust through its neck.

                                                           

Two left.

Elemental clones seldom used ninjutsu—they were only imbued with a small amount of chakra on creation, and using it up risked destroying themselves without their enemy having to lift a finger. But having lost their numbers advantage, it seemed Zabuza’s clones no longer cared.

“Water Element: Water Bullet!”

A tightly-bound mass of water shot at Sasuke's head with incredible speed. It was all he could do to dive sideways to avoid it, then push his hands against the ground and go into an impromptu cartwheel to dodge the second shot.

And then suddenly the unarmed clone was lying on the ground next to him, having swapped places with Sakura's log. The water bullet’s sole purpose had been to drive Sasuke into position.

The clone's arm snapped out, grabbed his head, and slammed it viciously against the ground. Sasuke was down.

The other clone, facing Naruto, wasn’t holding back either.

“Water Element: Geyser Blade Technique!”

Before Naruto could dodge, a sudden blast of pressurised water came out of the ground beneath his feet, faster and more devastating even than Zabuza's sword. Within a mere second, there was nothing left of him.

At least until a couple of distant tree branches turned into shadow clones.

“You call yourselves clones?” Naruto Twelve jeered. “Any true clone would know never to let the original onto the battlefield.”

The Zabuzas turned to face the Narutos. The unarmed one drew a kunai.

Both Narutos considered the battlefield. Sasuke and Sakura were out, but they seemed to be breathing. Which figured. If a professional assassin like Zabuza had wanted them dead, he'd have finished them off the second they were disabled. Why hadn’t he? Hostages? Interrogation? Zabuza didn’t strike the Narutos as the type to have a soft spot for kids.

Not that the clones’ motivations were going to matter for much longer.

“You guys just made two extremely stupid mistakes,” Naruto Three informed them.

“You hurt our team,” Naruto Twelve continued.

“And you made sure they couldn't see us fight,” Naruto Three finished.

“And now you pay.”

The two clones started making seals at the same time as the Zabuzas charged towards them. They finished just before the enemy got within striking range.

“Uzumaki-style Genjutsu: Void Prison!”

There was a blur of _something_ coming from the Narutos' hands too fast to comprehend, and the water clones vanished from sight.

The Narutos were proud of this technique. Even now, inside their prison, the water clones would be experiencing no sight and no sound—just limitless darkness. It was how the Narutos imagined it would feel to be trapped in the void before creation, empty of anything but their own awareness. Poetic justice indeed for the master of Silent Killing.

And the best part? The Dispelling Technique, the bane of all genjutsu, would do nothing to save them.

Elemental clones usually weren’t programmed to defend against genjutsu. They already processed information differently enough to humans that most genjutsu users wouldn’t bother to try. Which meant that genjutsu defence would be a hole in even Zabuza’s clone AI. The Narutos had all the time in the world to confer, strategise, and prepare their next techniques.

Finally, the Zabuzas figured out the trick. Their blades cut through the soundproofed, interlocking black panels forming solid boxes around them, destroying the Transformed shadow clones they were made from.

But their day was only about to get worse.

The first, armed Zabuza clone found a kunai flying at it. It shifted its sword to block.

“Uzumaki-style Taijutsu: Battering Ram Technique!”

With a flicker, the kunai was replaced by Naruto Twelve. Then, in the same instant, he disappeared again—to be replaced by an enormous log. And thanks to the wonderful property of momentum exchange, which allowed even fast-moving ninja to use the Substitution Technique to safely swap with static objects, the log was moving at thrown kunai speed.

The blow took the clone clean off its feet. Then, as it fell, Number Twelve replaced the log once again, and started stabbing. The water clone never had a chance.

Meanwhile, the other Zabuza clone found a hail of shuriken flying at it in a broad spread. Most of them went hopelessly wide, flying above the clone's head and off to its sides. What few were on target were effortlessly deflected with a kunai block.

Naruto Three was unfazed.

“Uzumaki-style Shurikenjutsu: Trick Shot Technique!”

As the shuriken passed Zabuza, each one turned into a shadow clone, and each shadow clone, still in mid-flight, started to throw kunai as fast as it could draw them.

There were too many angles, and not enough time to turn. The clone was destroyed even before Number Three's own supplementary kunai could reach it.

The battle was over.

A few seconds later, a bush near the edge of the clearing turned into the real Naruto. He gave the clones an approving nod, and all three busied themselves with trying to wake Sasuke and Sakura.

Unfortunately, his teammates were out cold. Then again, they weren’t dead, despite everything Team Seven had just been through. After leaving the clones to drag them out of sight and stand guard, and dispelling all the others that he'd hidden around the area during the Concealing Mist Technique, Naruto himself ran off to back up Kakashi-sensei.

His haste turned out to be unwarranted. He met Kakashi-sensei halfway back, apparently hurrying to do the exact same thing for Team Seven.

Naruto filled him in. His story was a masterpiece worthy of Uzumaki Naruto himself, managing to describe the battle in a way that was entirely consistent with what Sakura and Sasuke had seen, _and_ to make it sound like their success was mostly thanks to Sasuke, _and_ to make it sound like Naruto was trying to downplay Sasuke's role as much as possible in favour of his own.

Kakashi-sensei duly acknowledged the achievement. “You took out all six? I'm proud of you three. I thought you'd manage to whittle their numbers down enough to stand your ground until I was done with Zabuza, but this is extraordinary.”

“So what happened with Zabuza, anyway?” Naruto asked.

Kakashi-sensei's (probable) smile vanished. “He outplayed me. I was about to finish him off when a Mist hunter-nin came in, dealt the deathblow with a thrown needle, and retrieved the body.”

“Why's that bad?” Naruto endeavoured to look confused, although he could already see where this was going. “Isn't it those guys' job to kill missing-nin and destroy the bodies before anyone can get village secrets out of them?”

“That's just it,” Kakashi-sensei explained. “It's unusual for them to retrieve the body instead of destroying it, and when they do retrieve it they normally use a special seal for storing corpses in scrolls. They certainly don't carry it off by hand, especially when the body is twice their size.

“And unfortunately, I only realised all of this three seconds after the hunter-nin moved out of combat range,” he added. “Following him would have meant abandoning you three, and I didn't have enough chakra left to send a shadow clone after you and still face an opponent of unknown level.”

Kakashi-sensei was being unusually forthcoming. Was he feeling guilty? Some small part of Naruto's mind stored this behaviour pattern away for later use.

“So you're saying... what? That it wasn't a real hunter-nin?”

Kakashi-sensei nodded. “He's probably one of Zabuza's allies. That means Zabuza is still alive, and now he's seen many of my best techniques, and has time to work out counters for them. And if he was planning this from the start, he probably took care not to show me _his_ best techniques, so we can't do the same.”

Naruto shivered. The genin’s battle with the water clones had been decided by this kind of knowledge. They’d known how elemental clones worked and chosen a strategy that took advantage of their enemy’s weakness. Naruto had known about Silent Killing and the Concealing Mist Technique, and been able to formulate a counter that saved his team from certain death. And his own trump card, the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique that no genin was supposed to know, had been the key to their victory. If Zabuza had known Naruto’s capabilities in advance the way he now knew Kakashi-sensei’s, and programmed his clones accordingly…

“So what do we do?” he asked Kakashi-sensei almost pleadingly.

“Fortunately, we have time to prepare as well. Zabuza’s feigned death was close enough to the real thing to fool my sight, and that means he won’t simply be able to shrug it off. Even if the reinforcements I requested don’t catch up to us in time and we have to cross into Wave alone, I will be able to train you for the final confrontation while he recovers.

“The good news is that we can be sure of our safety in the meantime—his pride and his professional reputation both demand that he not let another mercenary finish his job.”

After picking up Sasuke and Sakura, and retrieving Tazuna from his camouflaged hiding place, they stopped by the original lake so that Kakashi-sensei could pick up his used ninja tools. And Naruto's jaw dropped.

The peaceful lakeside clearing had been reshaped into a vision of elemental hell. Jagged spikes of rock, cracked and broken but still sharp enough to cut, rose from the lake. Water-filled chasms divided up the landscape, plugged in places by crumbling remains of thick stone walls. Uprooted trees littered the edges like discarded rubbish, with even the survivors marked by great holes punched clean through their trunks.

_This_ was how jōnin fought when they didn't have to worry about friendly fire.


	7. Chapter 7

Morino Ibiki was a frightening man. He was not like Iruka-sensei, who sometimes tried to act tough but was really a big softie underneath. He was not like Mizuki-sensei, who was all smiles until the moment he thought someone wasn't showing him respect, when he suddenly lashed out like an angry snake. He wasn't even like Kataoka-sensei, who had scary shiny glasses and an obsession with discipline, but also bought the class sweets at the end of term if everyone passed the test. Morino Ibiki acted like the second he thought you were a threat, even if you were his best friend or his brother, he would knock you out and have you taken away, and then nobody would ever see you again. Later, long after this special guest lecture at the Academy, some of the children would learn that this was literally true.

“Members of the civilian population often ask me,” Morino began, “'what is a ninja?' Who here can tell me the answer?”

Nobody wanted to answer a question in front of the whole year group. What if you got it wrong and everyone laughed at you? And on top of that, nobody wanted to be wrong in front of Morino Ibiki, the uncrowned king of the dark side of ninja life that no child wanted to think about.

The guest lecturer stood still, and silently waited. There was nothing special you could point to in his posture or his expression, but gradually a certain mood began to permeate the hall. Morino was in charge here, and his approval meant happiness and safety. All they had to do was do their best to answer his questions, and he would look after them as if they were his own. The alternative, Morino’s disapproval, was associated only with nebulous terror.

Bit by bit this mysterious feeling outweighed the children’s natural discomfort. Finally, a blonde girl in the middle of the assembly hesitantly raised her hand.

Morino nodded at her.

“Someone who fights bad people to protect the village.”

“Good,” Morino smiled. “Anyone else?”

A boy wearing a pair of sunglasses indoors raised his hand next.

“Someone who carries out missions to bring money to the village.”

Soon there was a rush of offerings, especially after it became clear that there were subtle gradations to Morino’s smile. Who wouldn’t want to give the best answer and be raised above everyone else in Morino’s eyes?

“Those are all reasonable definitions,” he told the audience. “But there's one you've all missed out, and it may be the most important.

“A ninja is a killer.”

He instantly had everyone's total attention.

“You were told when you entered the Academy that the life of a ninja is full of sacrifice. You were told that one day, you might be called upon to give your lives for the sake of your comrades and the village. But the first sacrifice you must make to become a ninja is both simpler and more cruel. You must sacrifice your innocence.”

The children listened to Morino, wide-eyed. The deep, rock-solid conviction they could see in his eyes was proof that he'd personally lived every word of what he was now telling them.

“Every single one of you, if you graduate and become genin, will face enemies of Leaf in battle. You will have to kill. At that time, if you hesitate for even a second, you will be killed first. That is why, among the many qualities you need to be a ninja, the most important one is killing intent.”

He paused to let the idea sink in, and slowly let his gaze sweep over the assembly. Each of the children felt like the tall, imposing man was looking directly into their eyes.

“In the coming months, many of you will drop out of the Academy because you have no killing intent. There is no shame in this. There are many ways you can serve the village, and just as some of you have the qualities needed to serve as ninja, so the rest will discover their own unique skills in time. A community that could do nothing but kill would not be worth protecting.

“For those who stay, understand what you are sacrificing for the village. The other man may not be a villain. He may be fighting for _his_ comrades and _his_ village, and doing what _he_ believes to be right. He may be like you in every possible way. Yet he is the enemy.”

Morino let every word of his final sentence fall into place in an exact, inexorable rhythm. “And you must kill him before he kills you.”

-o-

That day and that speech were burned into the mind of every single Academy student. In accordance with Morino Ibiki's prediction, the number of students dropped sharply, the first wave leaving in the immediate aftermath, then more as they began the special classes designed to condition them to kill, and many found themselves unable to murder a living enemy, even when that enemy was really a clone or an illusion.

Historically, Naruto’s assigned class reading had told him, all shinobi were taught from youth to suppress their emotions in order to be able to treat their enemies as simple targets rather than living human beings. It was Leaf that had pioneered a superior form of conditioning: it taught its ninja to find motivations that reinforced their personalities, allowing them to face the full impact of killing without crumbling under the stress. Thus the zealotry of those who believed in the Will of Fire, thus the emphasis on willing sacrifice, on the centrality of the village to their lives, and on the preciousness of bonds and the need to protect them. Instead of tough, brittle ninja that believed in nothing and obeyed orders perfectly, at the price of a sizeable chunk of their psychological health and overall potential, Leaf trained ninja who fought with genuine passion, and thought that their beliefs and values were freely chosen.

Of course, the textbooks didn't quite frame it that way, being more along the lines of “Leaf became the strongest village because it allowed its shinobi to fulfil their full potential as human beings”. But when you had no true bonds to protect, no place in village society and apparently no right to inherit the Will of Fire, it wasn’t difficult to step outside everyone else’s belief system and read between the lines.

It wasn’t something he’d ever had to seriously contemplate before—not until he’d killed a man with his own hands. But there’d been no chance to reflect on it during the Night From Hell, nor during the chaos of the day that followed. Afterwards, they'd made double time to the next inn on their route—they didn’t want to be caught in the open with half of their team disabled, and any other mercenaries might not yet have got the memo that Zabuza wanted to get his own revenge. So now, here Naruto was at last, lying awake and wondering: as someone who wasn't taken in by illusions like “community” and “comrades”, what was _he_ fighting and killing for? Why had he found it so easy to take lives when he'd never internalised the beliefs that absolved others of guilt for things done in the line of duty?

It wasn't just because of the kill-or-be-killed situations, he knew. People fighting for their lives could freeze up like anyone else. Nor was it because, in the purest technical sense, he hadn't killed anyone—although it was true that Sasuke had been the one to deal the death blow to the Demon Brother, and Zabuza's water clones had never been alive in any meaningful sense to begin with. Try as he might to be satisfied with a simple explanation like that, Naruto couldn't rid himself of the feeling that there was a deeper, truer reason why he had always seen becoming able to kill as less of a tragic sacrifice and more of a broadening of options.

-o-

Sakura wasn't sleeping either. Yesterday she'd watched Sasuke kill an enemy ninja without hesitation, his movements beautiful, precise, and without a shred of mercy. She'd tried to put it out of her mind, tried not to question what that meant—about Sasuke, about ninja in general, about her future—but then today another ninja had very nearly done the same to her, as if to say, “Reality is brutal, and it's not going away”.

Was this going to be her life from now on? Was she going to have to wade through rivers of blood like Zabuza and Kakashi-sensei? Was this what she'd joined the shinobi Academy to become?

There was a brief sense of tension inside Sakura’s mind, as if something was being pushed aside to make room.

“Quit moping around, you moron. I'll tell you what you _didn't_ want to become, and that's some angsty little girl who goes to pieces in the middle of her first big mission.”

Inner Sakura didn’t mince words. She also didn’t let herself get hung up on other people’s feelings, question the rightness of her actions, take nonsense from anybody, or ever, ever hold back. That was the whole point of her. But while Sakura knew she couldn’t have made it this far without her guidance, the price was that Inner Sakura treated _her_ the same as everyone else. Even now, Inner Sakura’s tone was laced with impatience bordering on contempt, as if she was berating the likes of Naruto rather than a normal human being.

Sakura cringed at the rebuke. “But what am I supposed to do? I’m not like Sasuke. I can't kill people just like that, without hesitation, just because they're the enemy. I thought it would be easier. I thought as long as I was fighting for the village, and for my parents, and for my friends, I'd be able to do anything. But what if I can't?”

Inner Sakura rolled her eyes condescendingly. “You've really forgotten, haven't you?”

“Forgotten what?”

Inner Sakura waved her hand. Inside their shared mind, an image—a memory—displaced the hazy backdrop connecting the two personas. A little pink-haired girl hid timidly behind a taller blonde girl in a wide green field, while all around them other children played together or picked flowers.

The pink-haired girl's feelings washed through Sakura. Fear of stepping out on her own. Gratitude to her protector. A desperate need to cling to her, and fear of being abandoned. And, eventually, shame. Shame made only deeper every time her parents compared her to Ino in the bizarre belief that telling her all the ways in which she was bad would somehow make her better.

“Now do you remember?” Inner Sakura demanded. “You swore, you _swore_ to yourself that you would never be that girl again. You _made me_ because you were so terrified of going back.

“You wanted to be strong. You wanted to be what she couldn't, to have what she couldn't. To have them look at you and see _you_ , not her. You fought tooth and nail to get into the Academy so you could become a ninja like her, only better. You studied until your head was ready to explode, just because you knew you were book-smart and she wasn't.”

It was true. It was all true. Ino might have been born with strength and confidence and beauty and everything that made a person matter, but now Sakura had all those things too, earned with every scrap of her being. And any day now, Sasuke would choose her and then her victory would be complete.

“Am I getting through here?” Inner Sakura asked rhetorically. “Good. Now, if you want to throw all that away because you don't have the guts to face what being a ninja really means, that's your call. I can go. You can be that little girl again to your heart's content.”

Sakura shook her head rapidly. “No. That's not what I want.”

“Or... you could get your ass in gear and show Sasuke that you're a real kunoichi, and twice the woman Ino is.”

Sakura was quiet for a few seconds.

“Three times the woman.”

“Atta girl,” Inner Sakura grinned. “You're gonna do just fine.”

“Hell yeah!”

-o-

Sasuke was very aware of Sakura’s status as a woman right now, but not in a way she’d like. Last night, he’d heard Naruto go into Kakashi-sensei’s room, later joined by Sakura. Then they'd both gone to Sakura's room—which was fine, as he had important things to think about, and was more than happy being left undisturbed in the room Kakashi-sensei had so cruelly made him share with Naruto. But then came the noises.

The sounds of physical exertion would have been pretty innocent on their own. Granted, only an idiot would start exercising this late at night, but then this was Naruto. Enough said. No, what drove Sasuke to distraction were the snatches of dialogue he overheard.

“No, Sakura, not there…” Naruto would say, then moan at Sakura’s unseen actions. “I can’t keep this up much longer” was another one, accompanied by out-of-breath panting.

Sakura was no better, with exclamations such as “Oh, that felt so good,” and “Summon more clones—we're just getting started!” and “You call yourself a man with stamina like that?”, delivered with increasing exhilaration. The noise went on all night, leaving Sasuke unable to sleep or to concentrate on anything whatsoever (and there was no way in hell he was going over there to tell them to shut up).

He’d found out the truth in the morning, of course, and made them feel the full weight of his displeasure. But as with most things with Naruto, it was in one ear and out the other, and in the end he had to content himself with Sakura’s torrent of panicked apologies.

But now he could finally get some peace and quiet and reflect on the mission so far. Much as Sasuke hated to admit it, they were clearly in over their heads. Kakashi-sensei had told them that he'd spoken to the leader of the support squad that had come to take the surviving Demon Brother away, providing a detailed description of their route and requesting an A-rank team to catch up to them as soon as possible to hand over the rest of the mission. It was no worse than what Sasuke would have done. If Kakashi-sensei had sent the request for help and the route description with the dog, it could have been intercepted, allowing the enemy to lay some devastating ambushes. Keeping it as verbal information memorised by a ninja squad was far safer. It would have been even safer if they'd turned back (not that Sasuke would ever think of advocating it), or stayed in place to wait for backup, but apparently there would only be one window for Tazuna's Wave contacts to sneak them past Gatō's blockade, and they couldn't risk missing it.

As for the mission itself... they were cutting it very fine indeed. He still didn't know how Team Seven had avoided total annihilation, since he'd regained consciousness after Kakashi-sensei and Naruto had both gone to sleep. Sakura was naturally of no help either. Still, his brush with death and the peculiar competence of his team aside (Sakura’s taijutsu had been almost acceptable, and he had no idea what to make of Naruto lately), the battle had been everything he'd hoped for. As long as he kept fighting enemies like these, he would grow stronger quickly. Every victory would be another step towards his goal.

Except... Sasuke hadn't even hesitated before killing that Demon Brother. It hadn't occurred to him to question what he was doing, or to make a conscious decision about taking lives. Had _he_ hesitated before killing their parents in the name of _his_ unknown ambition? Or had it been this easy for _him_ too? Was this how it happened? Was there a slippery slope where you had no trouble dispatching your enemies, then moved on to your friends, then your family? Was it Sasuke's destiny to become the next Itachi?

No. The battlefield was a place only for those who were willing to risk their lives in the name of a greater goal. He had his goal, and he was prepared to risk his life for it. His enemies had theirs, and did the same. It was right and proper and honourable that one would win and grow stronger, while the other would lose and be destroyed. Whether he won or lost, he would respect the law of the battlefield. He would never be as weak as the coward who killed civilians, even children, with weapons that had been forged to protect them.

-o-

The rest of the journey to the Country of the Wave was blissfully uneventful, although Sakura and Sasuke had grown suspicious of Naruto after learning that he’d brought down two Zabuza clones on his own. It had taken a week of sustained buffoonery before they weighed the odds and concluded that the clones were more likely to have been killed by a freak meteor strike than by Naruto being a competent ninja.

The crossing into Wave had to be done late at night so as to avoid Gatō's patrol boats, with a complicated signalling system to bring Tazuna's boatman ally to them without alerting anyone to their presence. It was an infiltration worthy of real ninja, which according to Tazuna was because it had been prepared by real ninja. Wave happened to have quite a few retired ninja among its residents, veterans who had moved to the peaceful island country to live out their remaining years amidst its idyllic landscapes and excellent climate. Gatō had been smart enough to leave them alone lest killing them draw retribution from their home villages, but stupid enough to then dismiss them from consideration just because any retired ninja was by definition too old, crippled and/or traumatised to fight.

It was the last and most fatal of Gatō’s mistakes. Wave should have been easy pickings—a nation of people so pacifistic that their idea of rebellion was building a bridge, and so uncoordinated that an entire country could be conquered by one man and his horde of half-trained thugs. Then his tyranny taught them how to unite in hatred. His purges created a core of hardened, fanatical survivors. And his interference with the retirement of a handful of ex-ninja created a resistance that knew everything there was to know about covert action, sabotage and information warfare. With Gatō’s mercenaries spending ever-increasing amounts of their time and his money running around putting out fires, it was no wonder that the magnate had been reduced to hiring missing-nin in order to put an end to a single civilian construction project.

As morning dawned, a duly enlightened Team Seven finally arrived in one of the larger towns on their way to Tazuna's home village (which would serve as their base for commuting to the construction site). Kakashi-sensei made the call to go through the town rather than spend time circumnavigating it, so this was where Team Seven got their first glimpse of life in the Country of the Wave.

Streets lined with empty shops, the nearly bare shelves of the successful a pitiful improvement over the boarded-up windows of the failed. Unnaturally thin, empty-eyed passers-by, with hunched shoulders, gazes fixed on the ground and faces concealed beneath their bizarre onion-top hats. Pavements whose perfectly-laid cobblestones were caked with filth and dirt. And countless homeless children lining the corners and alleyways. Naruto watched the townspeople look past the children with apathetic eyes, as if they simply weren't there, and something inside him snapped.

Knowing he might well regret it later, Naruto started to hand out coins from his frog-shaped wallet to the children they passed. After a little while, Sakura started doing the same, albeit some way away and on the other side of the street, as if unable to admit that she was copying him. Before too long, the party of five had an ever-growing crowd of street children following them, begging for money.

“Nice job drawing attention to us, you imbecile,” Sasuke snapped at Naruto.

Naruto's anger at the world he was living in immediately extended itself to Sasuke. He grabbed him by the collar. “You got a problem with how I choose to spend my money?”

“I do when it affects the mission,” Sasuke retaliated. “And what do you think this is going to accomplish anyway? Those kids are going to get maybe one good meal out of your money, and then they'll be back where they started, and nothing will have changed. Tazuna's got the right idea with his bridge—if you want to change the world, you need to have vision, not play at being everybody's friend for a day.”

Naruto shoved Sasuke away. “You spoiled little rich kid,” he growled. “What in cold hell do you know?! You've never had to go hungry in your entire life. You've never had to look to people for help and have them turn away as if you were offending them just by existing. You couldn't begin to understand what it means to receive a single act of kindness from somebody who could have walked away. So I'm telling you right now. Shut the fuck up before I make you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto was vaguely aware of Sakura staring helplessly at the two of them, as if wanting to step in but not knowing whom to side with. She wouldn’t understand either, not with her cosy home and happy family, but at least it looked like she was trying.

Before Sasuke’s meaningless pride could turn this into yet another fight, Kakashi-sensei stepped in. “I'm not going to intervene in your ethical debate, but I will point out that extra attention is actually an advantage for us. Wave has no ninja village. To most of them, shinobi are mystical beings of legend with unimaginable supernatural powers. Seeing us on their side will be a major boost for morale, which will benefit our work in all sorts of ways.

“From a more long-term perspective, Wave has been cut off from the rest of the world for a long time. For many, this is their first impression of Hidden Leaf. Right now, it's an impression of wealth and generosity, not to mention the fact that we've twice defeated the best Gatō had to send against us without any losses.

“I should also remind you that you can expect B-rank or A-rank pay for this mission, so lack of personal finances is not something you should worry about right now.”

With that, Kakashi-sensei returned to his position next to Tazuna. Naruto did notice, however, that he didn't give any of his own money away.

-o-

The team's mood was tense when they finally arrived at Tazuna's house in a small village not far from the shore. It was a large house which had clearly seen better days—which figured, since with Tazuna gone, the only people left to look after it had been his daughter Tsunami and her son Inari.

While the black-haired little boy was very quiet, perhaps shy, his mother was the very soul of hospitality. It was quite incredible how, without the assistance of shadow clones, she managed to simultaneously get everyone's bags put away in the guest rooms, prepare and serve a vast quantity of seafood broth, lecture her father for gaining so much weight during his time away, quiz everyone on news from the outside world, and generally make Team Seven feel like honoured guests. Sasuke, to his utter horror, became a special target, as Tsunami decided his slight frame obviously meant he wasn't eating enough, and proceeded to ply him with extra helpings while cooing about the poor emaciated boy and how she would restore a rosy glow to his cheeks if it was the last thing she did. Naruto wanted to laugh his head off, but was afraid this might draw her attention to him instead.

The good food and pleasant conversation helped everyone relax, and after a variety of small talk, the conversation turned to the bridge, and the progress that had been made in Tazuna's absence. While it was less than desired, since Tazuna was apparently the only person with the necessary engineering expertise who hadn't been blackmailed or otherwise intimidated into submission by Gatō's goons, the old man was confident that with him there to “drive some motivation into those slackers”, they’d be back on schedule in no time.

“Relax, Tsunami,” Naruto boasted, lounging back in his seat. “We're the top three ninja of Leaf's younger generation, and Kakashi-sensei here may not look like much, but he's a famous hero of the Third Great Ninja War. Between our strength and your bridge, we're going to kick Gatō's ass so hard they're going to have to rename him Jellō! Believe it!”

Inari, who had been listening quietly for most of the meal, suddenly leapt to his feet, hands in fists. “You're all stupid! You think you're heroes? Gatō's going to kill you like he's killed everyone else! Nobody can fight him! If you have any brains, you should just give up now!”

“Inari!” Tsunami snapped. “Don't be rude to our guests!

“I'm sorry,” she said to the ninja. “My husband—Inari's stepfather—died trying to protect our village from Gatō's mercenaries, and we still... feel his loss very keenly.”

“That's right!” Inari wouldn't let up. “He tried to be a hero, but there's no such thing as heroes. If he hadn't done that, he'd still be alive. And now you're going to die trying to be heroes too!”

“Hey,” Naruto started, “Now you're just being—”

“Shut up!” Inari cut him off. “I hate being surrounded by idiots like you! And I hate living like this! It wouldn't have to be like this if people didn't go around trying to be heroes!”

Naruto opened his mouth, but to his surprise, before he could say anything Sasuke beat him to it.

“Shut the hell up, you loser.” Sasuke apparently had no intention of going easy on the boy. “Did I just hear you dismiss your father dying fighting to protect your family? Did I just hear you dismiss the life your mother works hard every day, on her own, to provide you with? Who the hell do you think you are that you should have the right to judge them?

“You think your father's death is a free pass for you to act like a wimp your whole life? You think because he wasn't strong enough you can just throw in the towel and forget about his killer? Well, you don't get to do that.

“If you don't like something, work to change it. If you're not strong enough for that, get stronger first. If you've got an enemy you want to beat, man up and train until you're strong enough, even if it takes years. And don't you dare dismiss other people for trying to do what you're too much of a coward to, whether they make it or not.”

The room was silent for a few seconds. Then Inari burst into tears and ran off.

Naruto's first thought was “Well done, Sasuke, you just went off on one at a pre-schooler”. But his second thought was “I'd have done it if you hadn't”. There was something simply unforgivable about someone taking their parents for granted like that.

The rest of the dinner was conducted in a subdued silence.

-o-

The next day, Team Seven assembled at a grove of particularly tall trees not far from the village for what Kakashi-sensei termed “tree walking” exercises. He gave them a brief explanation of how they worked (push chakra out from the soles of your feet, not so little that you slide off, not so much that you fly away), as well as explaining the vast benefits this skill would deliver in terms of mobility and general chakra manipulation, and sent them out for a first try.

Naruto was forced to admit that Sasuke's attempt was impressive—he made it halfway up his tree of choice before making a mark with a kunai and backflipping off.

Sakura's was nothing short of astounding—for all that they'd become used to her falling behind in combat, she took a leisurely stroll to the very top and then sat on the highest branch blowing raspberries at them. Apparently, her chakra control really was her strong point.

Now it was Naruto's turn. He started to run up the tree. Adjusting the levels of chakra in his feet seemed fairly trivial, on the same level of complexity as adjusting his grip to hold onto a moderately slippery bar of soap. Then, with a start, he realised that he was nearing the top, and thereby revealing his own enhanced chakra control skills. This called for emergency measures.

“Bwaargh!” Naruto “accidentally” channelled way too much chakra into his feet, and shot off the tree with the speed of greased lightning, nearly bowling Kakashi-sensei over before coming to rest upside down in a groove made by his head some way from the clearing.

Wow. That had been educational. Naruto suddenly knew how skilled ninja managed to instantly accelerate the way they did. This would have some amazing taijutsu applications, to say nothing of his more... special... techniques.

Kakashi-sensei, meanwhile, just shook his head.

-o-

Naruto was in bed, finishing up his reading—the team had patched things up with Inari, at least enough for Naruto to borrow some of Wave's intriguingly foreign manga from him. It wasn’t the kind of hour for people to go knocking on his door, but since it was fifty-fifty odds that this was one of his hosts, he couldn’t exactly turn them away.

“Come in!”

Kakashi-sensei entered and closed the door firmly behind him. “Do you have a minute, Naruto?”

“Sure. What's up, Kakashi-sensei?”

“I see you're enjoying some manga,” Kakashi-sensei observed. “I read some myself before the start of this mission. As it happens, Asuma's nephew has a full collection of _Ikazuchi Saga_.”

Naruto tried to keep his expression blank. Oh, cold hell.

“Really? And what did you think?”

“I wanted to see the fight Sakura told me you got your Genin Exam plan from. Curious thing—I couldn't find anything remotely similar in the whole series.”

Naruto gave his finest innocent shrug. “I must have been thinking of a different manga after all. I'm sure the title will come to me eventually.”

Kakashi-sensei gave him a piercing look. “Naruto, do you mind if I tell you a bedtime story?”

As far as Naruto could remember, nobody had ever told him a bedtime story, and he would have bet all his savings against Kakashi-sensei being the first.

“Uh, sure, if you like.”

“Back in the days of the Third Great Ninja War,” Kakashi-sensei began, “there were two squad leaders whose mission success rates were far above those of any other. One was my master, Minato-sensei, and the—”

“Who was Minato-sensei?” Naruto interrupted. The name rang a bell, perhaps from one of those history lessons during which he did his best to appear asleep.

“Namikaze Minato, the Yellow Flash,” Kakashi explained. “You know him as the Fourth Hokage.”

“Whoa! You were trained by the Fourth himself?!” Kakashi-sensei's standing with Naruto suddenly rose astronomically.

“At the time, he was one of the top squad leaders. The other was a man named… well, none of us could ever pronounce his foreign name, so we usually went with ‘Vash’. And he's the one I want to tell you about.

“Vash was a genius ninja—as you can see from the fact that he rivalled the future Fourth Hokage—but he hated responsibility and did everything he could to avoid it. So he worked hard to hide his true skill, to the point where even now most people haven't heard of him. Do you know what 'obfuscating stupidity' means?”

Naruto kept his breathing even. His vision was growing narrow, and his heartbeat loud, but hopefully Kakashi-sensei couldn’t tell that just by looking at him. He shook his head.

“It's when you act like an idiot to disguise the fact that you're actually very intelligent. Vash was a master of it. His squad would join battle, and he'd slip and fall, or trip over and grab something completely unexpected for balance, or throw a kunai and accidentally cut a rope holding up something heavy, and when his opponents were done laughing they'd suddenly realise he'd eliminated half their squad without a scratch on him.”

This Vash sounded entirely like Naruto’s kind of guy.

“But then one day his squad was caught in a massive ambush by Hidden Rock troops. And Vash didn't know what to do. There were too many of them to fight with his usual fake incompetence, but if he used his full strength and saved the day, he'd shoot straight to the top of the candidate list for next Hokage, and everyone knew the Third was planning to retire once the war was over.”

“So what did he do?” Naruto asked, dreading the answer.

“Nothing. His indecision lasted for entire seconds, and in a high-level shinobi battle, that can be a lifetime. By the time he made up his mind, it was too late. Rock had wiped out the rest of his squad. Of course, he then destroyed them with his full power, but that didn't bring anyone back—not the specialists he needed to complete the mission, and not the teammates who had trusted him with their lives.”

Naruto had no response. That could have been him if he’d held back even a little bit against the water clones.

“Vash gave up being a ninja after the war, and disappeared completely. Some say he couldn't live with the guilt. Others think he's still out there, somewhere, trying to atone.”

Kakashi-sensei held Naruto's gaze. “I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, Naruto. But if you want to be a good shinobi, you need to know what matters to you most, and what you're prepared to sacrifice for it. Think about it while there's still time.”

He left without waiting for a reply, not that Naruto had one to give him.

Naruto didn't sleep that night.

-o-

In the morning, after breakfast, Naruto went to Kakashi-sensei, and very quietly asked him what the next step of training was after tree walking, and whether it was something he could do on his own.

Kakashi-sensei decided to send a shadow clone with him to act as a teacher, leaving the original to supervise Sasuke and Sakura. Apparently while the latter could mould the right intensity of chakra in her sleep, she would quickly deplete her low reserves if she didn’t learn to be more efficient.

Whether deliberately or by chance, Kakashi-sensei chose a distant clearing as the training site, one where no one would ever stumble across Naruto by accident.

“This exercise is called water walking,” Kakashi-sensei told him. “Not only do you have to regulate the amount of chakra emitted from your feet, but you have to adjust it second by second to the outside environment until it becomes second nature. Normally you'd start out on a still surface like a lake, but time is limited and you need this weaponised by the time Tazuna is ready to resume construction work on the bridge next week.”

Kakashi-sensei casually gestured towards the nearest source of water, which happened to be a raging river, deep and terrifyingly fast. Naruto was not an animist, but even so he clearly recognised its desire to tear him to shreds for the heinous crime of being a human in its vicinity.

He gave Kakashi-sensei a “You've got to be kidding me” look.

Kakashi-sensei shrugged, and calmly walked over to the other side of the river as if it were a smooth stone floor. “Don't forget, when you fall in and start getting carried into the rapids, you can just use what you learned in tree walking to touch off something solid and leap out to shore again.”

Naruto noticed that he'd said “when” rather than “if”, but it was too late to complain.

“Thanks, Kakashi-sensei.”

“Keep at it for the rest of the day. Come back once it starts getting dark and I'll talk you through some basic tips if you're struggling. But the more you can achieve on your own, the more you’ll get out of it. Then after dinner, we'll be working on anti-Zabuza strategy.”

And with that, Kakashi-sensei left him to face the river’s wrath alone.

-o-

Training sucked. Even with a few shadow clones doing it alongside him, progress was slow and painful. It didn’t help that, since the clones had a tendency to try to grab onto each other (and him) when falling, every failure cascaded until everyone was wet. Naruto promised himself that once he could do Fire Element techniques like Sasuke, the first thing he'd do was learn (or invent) an instant clothes-drying ninjutsu.

Grumbling to himself, he dismissed the shadow clones and headed for a convenient log on the other side of the clearing to take a break.

“Don't move!”

Naruto froze, his foot still in mid-air. Oh, cold hell. Zabuza wasn't supposed to be active until next week at the earliest. Had his mysterious hunter-nin ally decided to make a solo first strike?

Naruto very slowly turned his head while keeping the rest of his body completely still.

The person he saw was not a ninja. It was, in fact, the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen in his life. Long black hair trembled in the breeze. Large brown eyes seemed ready to capture his gaze, their colour brought out further by a matching choker around her neck. A sleeveless pink kimono accentuated her pale skin. Looking at her, Naruto's heart skipped a beat.

“You were about to step on a valuable medicinal herb,” she explained matter-of-factly before plucking said herb from the ground. “You can move now.”

Naruto stepped down. “Uh, hi. You're gathering herbs?”

What an unbelievably smooth first impression, his inner critic congratulated him. That eloquence trophy is surely on its way even as we speak.

“My master's feeling sick, and I wanted to make some medicine to help him recover. This area is very good for medicinal herbs. What about you?”

“I'm Uzumaki Naruto, a mighty ninja!” Naruto declared, trying to recover from his earlier gaffe. “I'm out here training.”

The girl smiled. “I'm Haku. Are you really a ninja? Is it true that you can fly and breathe fire?”

“I think you're thinking of dragons,” Naruto told her. “I do know someone who can breathe fire, but he's a bit of a jerk.”

She laughed. “So what are you training to do?”

“I'm learning to walk on water.” Naruto decided not to demonstrate, aware that falling into the river was unlikely to help him impress Haku.

“That's amazing! Can you show me?”

“Uhh... I'm actually just taking a break. So do you live around here?”

The girl hesitated, then nodded. “Sort of. My master and I used to travel the world before Gatō trapped everyone here.”

“What does your master do?”

“Oh, he can do everything!” Haku said proudly.

An idea occurred to Naruto. “Hey, how about I help you out with gathering herbs, and in return you tell me some stories about your travels? This is my first time outside the Fire Country.”

“But don't you need to train?”

Naruto shook his head. “Don't worry about it.”

He summoned a few shadow clones and sent them to resume the training. Haku's jaw dropped.

“You can make more of yourself?!”

“It's no big deal,” Naruto replied modestly even as an aura of smugness a hundred metres wide radiated from him. “So what kind of herbs are we looking for?”

“For a start, more like this one. This is false hawksbeard—you can take it internally to treat coughs and fevers, or to help with snake and insect bites.”

Naruto nodded. “Gotcha. All right, tell me a story.”

“Well,” Haku was deep in thought for a second. “There was this time when my master and I had signed on with a merchant bringing an order of unusually-shaped turnips to the Country of Tea. Unfortunately, right before we got to the daimyo’s court, the merchant fell ill with stomach flu, and he begged us to complete the deal for him. But what he forgot to tell us was that the daimyo didn't want them for _eating_...”

 

“...and then my master says, 'The contract never said anything about getting the goat off the flagpole afterwards!’”

“Bwahahaha!”

Naruto had been having so much fun listening to Haku that he barely noticed it was getting dark. He'd never wanted dinner less.

“Will you be gathering herbs here again tomorrow?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Haku told him. “Will you be skiving off your training here again tomorrow?”

“Only if you help me,” Naruto told her.

Haku laughed and gave a nod.

Naruto walked back to Tazuna's house in high spirits.

-o-

Dinner was a lively affair. Sasuke was sulking at being beaten by Sakura, Sakura was over the moon at finally having something she could impress Sasuke with, and Naruto was practically bouncing, and unsuccessfully trying to hide it. At one point, Kakashi and Tsunami both stared at him for a few seconds, then exchanged meaningful looks.

A few seconds later, Tsunami leaned over and whispered, “Local girl?” in Kakashi's ear.

“Almost certainly,” Kakashi whispered back.

“What are you two whispering about over there?” Inari demanded. “I'm telling you now, I do not want a ninja as a stepdad!”

Tsunami blushed, while Kakashi kept his expression entirely unreadable. Sakura, Naruto and even Sasuke laughed.

-o-

The next day saw Naruto making extraordinary progress in his training (which is to say only falling into the river whenever he stopped paying one hundred percent attention). When Haku arrived, he took care to position himself so she would face away from the river. If she noticed the clones’ antics behind her anyway, she was too polite to comment.

Today, he took more of an active role in their conversations, partly at Haku’s insistence. He found himself full of stories about the life of a ninja (and the D-rank missions, including a number of anecdotes about That Accursed Cat), and about the people he spent his time with, temperamental Sakura, wannabe genius Sasuke, curious but easily terrified Hinata, and quite a few others. For someone so used to thinking of himself as alone, Naruto was surprised by how much he had to tell her. Haku was a natural listener, and he even found himself telling her about the others, people whose significance to him he struggled to define but whose existence unquestionably mattered: the Hokage, Teuchi and Ayame from the ramen shop, Raijin, Iruka-sensei, and, he realised to his surprise, increasingly Kakashi-sensei too.

Haku sounded wistful when she questioned him about the people in his life. Apparently, her life on the road didn't leave her with opportunities to make friends. It was just her and her master—although it helped that he was the most incredible man ever, strong, wise, caring and generally incomparable in every way.

“Sounds like you're in love with him,” Naruto teased her.

“Don't be silly,” Haku told him. “My master's my master. He's not someone you love or hate. He's above all that. It would be like being in love with the whole world all at once.”

“Oh, so he's your world, is he?”

“Yes,” Haku nodded, completely seriously. “He is.”

Naruto didn't have much he could say to that.

From there the conversation turned to what it was like to live in a ninja village, surrounded by other people, many of whom also had amazing supernatural abilities. Haku asked, for example, how you prevented crime in a village where everybody was an expert at being sneaky and covering their tracks. Naruto had to explain about the village police, and how Leaf used to have a special clan, the Uchiha, whose Sharingan eyes allowed them to see through any disguise and defeat even the deadliest ninja criminals. Unfortunately, this meant he also had to tell her about the Uchiha Massacre, and how one dark night Uchiha Itachi had wiped out his entire clan for no reason anyone could fathom, leaving only his little brother alive. Haku was deeply moved by the discovery that Naruto's friend (no, he corrected her, the term was “rival”) Sasuke was the last survivor of his clan.

Since the mood was growing dark, Naruto decided to quickly change the subject. He cast around for something to talk about, and recalled that yesterday she'd mentioned playing shogi as part of a ridiculous bet in the Country of Vegetables.

“You said you like shogi, right? I do too.”

 “Do you have a favourite strategy?”

Naruto beamed. “Oh, sure. I'm a big fan of the Yagura Castle as long as you don’t get stalemated, and there are _so_ many ways to mess with your opponent using the Floating Rook—”

He suddenly realised what he was saying. _This_ was why he was supposed to watch what he was saying twice as carefully whenever he got excited. So much for that budding friendship.

Then he realised to his surprise that Haku was staring at him with keen interest.

“I _hate_ the Floating Rook,” she announced. “My master gets me with it every time and I still haven't figured out a counter.”

“Oh!” Naruto exclaimed. “Well, what you want to do is try to make an opening for a Climbing Silver. You’ll be in a lot of pain if you mess it up, but the basic idea is this...”

-o-

Naruto was in heaven. Pure and absolute heaven. He had discovered the perfect woman. Apart from being beautiful and charming and clever and interesting, she actually took his intelligence to be a good thing. Inspired by the way the day had gone, he even made some great suggestions during the nightly anti-Zabuza strategy meeting, like ways in which he could place his shadow clones on the bridge to prepare traps before the battle. It wasn't anything that could dramatically undermine his façade, but it was still more than he would have had the courage to say before.

-o-

“You know,” he told Haku, “it's not very safe travelling the roads all the time with just one man to protect you. How about I teach you a little self-defence to balance out all the herbal medicine you've taught me?”

Haku did not object. In fact, it struck Naruto, there was an unfamiliar intensity about her as they trained, as if she was focusing less on replicating the moves herself and more on the detail of how _he_ was doing them. On impulse, he decided to try something... just in case.

The next technique he tried to teach her was not another standard piece of civilian-friendly self-defence. It was a highly advanced ANBU-level assassination move he had seen exactly once in his life, the night he'd carefully inserted a dozen clones Transformed into pages into Kakashi-sensei's copy of _Makeout Tactics_. It was the page on which the name of Mikoto's real father was finally revealed, and Kakashi-sensei would open it and do a double-take at the name, only for the page to vanish in a puff of smoke and reveal a nearly-identical page—with a different name. Too afraid of damaging a real page to try to destroy all the remaining clones at once, and too afraid of spoilers to try to flick past them, Kakashi-sensei had to suffer through all twelve iterations before reaching the real revelation.

While Naruto had not managed to learn the full technique, which would have required seeing it more than once and ideally not being in extreme agony at the time, he knew enough to try to teach it to Haku and see what happened.

To his thoroughly concealed horror, she picked it up as effortlessly as all the others, without seeing any apparent difference.

Wave had no ninja village. All the foreign ninja living in Wave were old and retired, and Gatō's blockade prevented any new ones from coming in. Haku, who had been in close and blissful physical contact with him in the process of practising the self-defence moves, was not under the Transformation Technique.

He now knew exactly who she was.

And even though she was clearly a highly skilled enemy ninja, and for all he knew everything she'd said and done so far had been an act, the fact was that he didn't want to have to kill her.

As they chatted about ninja village economics, and the bizarre matchmaking customs of the Country of Wheat, and the strategic pros and cons of the Flatfish Opening, Naruto hastily developed, analysed and dismissed plan after plan. Eventually, as the sun got low, he decided he had something with at least a small chance of working.

“Hey, Haku, are you busy tomorrow?”

The girl tilted her head slightly in puzzlement. “No, pretty much like today. My master's getting better, but there are still a few medicines that he could do with.”

“Then do you fancy... uh... going on a d-d-date?”

Haku stared at him as if he’d spontaneously grown nine tails. “A date? With me?”

“S-Sure,” Naruto affirmed, while inwardly going “Pleasepleaseplease let this work!” and also “Help! What do you do on a date?”

Haku let the silence stretch until Naruto was near panic. Finally she nodded. “Meet you here at the usual time?”

“Yes! I mean yes.”

For good or ill, his fate was now sealed.

-o-

_Late that night, after everyone had gone to bed..._

Naruto knocked on the door.

“Uh, Tsunami, can I talk to you?”

“Naruto? Of course. Just give me a second.”

There was a brief delay.

“Come in!”

Naruto came into the bedroom. Tsunami, in a green dressing gown, was waiting for him.

“What is it, Naruto?”

“Um... I know I don't know you very well, but I need advice, and it's not something I can ask anyone in my team...” Naruto shifted his feet awkwardly.

Tsunami nodded sagely. “You want to know how to invite a girl on a date.”

Naruto was stunned by the uncanny guess. It was a reminder not to underestimate people just because they hadn’t been trained in spycraft.

“Actually, she's already said yes. I want to know what you do on a date, and how. I really don't want to mess this up.” Not when there were lives at stake.

“I see. Well, the first thing you need to do is look the part. What have you got apart from your uniform?”

“Uh... just these clothes I'm wearing now.”

Tsunami shook her head. “No, that'll never do. How long do we have before the date?”

“It's tomorrow.”

Tsunami looked taken aback. “Dear heavens.

“Right. Stand up. Arms out. Let's see if any of Kaiza's old things fit you.”

“Arms up!”

“No, the colour's all wrong.”

 “Arms out.”

 “Sleeves are too long, but goes well with your eyes.”

 “Stop squirming!”

 “My, I didn't realise he'd kept that. Oh, the way he looked in it when he danced...”

“Tsunami? Is something wrong?”

-o-

That night, Naruto learned the unimaginable power a woman can unleash when guided by a higher purpose and wielding a sewing machine. He also memorised a list of nearby tourist locations, based on a very old guidebook Tsunami lent him. According to her, it had been brought here by a visiting ninja tourist from far away, who had given the thing to her and proclaimed that her encyclopaedic knowledge of the area, as well as her surpassing beauty, made her a far superior guide. Inside the front cover, there was indeed a message reading “To Tsunami, from Jiraiya with love”. Despite its age, the book was in excellent condition, barring the red circles marked around a number of hot springs.

But there was only so much one could do to prepare, even armed with Tsunami's advice, encouragement and promise of absolute secrecy no matter what. Naruto adjusted his hand-me-down black trousers and crimson jacket, took a deep breath and entered the clearing.

It was just as well he'd taken a deep breath, because it was suddenly caught in his lungs. Haku was wearing a black kimono with cherry blossom patterns that somehow managed to make her look even more amazing than she did before. Her smile was radiant, though there seemed to be some subtle melancholy quality to it—or was that just his imagination now that he knew her to be an enemy?

“You look stunning,” he told her when he could speak.

“I like the way you look too,” she replied. “So where are we going?”

“Right this way.”

-o-

Were he not keenly aware that Haku was an enemy who would soon be trying to kill him and the rest of his team, it would perhaps have been the perfect date. He'd plotted a route down a riverside path leading to an old and beautiful temple, with an inn nearby that had largely escaped the ravaging of Wave's economy through exceptional self-sufficiency, and could thus offer an excellent meal in elegant surroundings. After an initial shy silence, Naruto and Haku found themselves talking incessantly.

But the main event was still to come.

As Naruto led Haku to the western gate of the city he'd passed through before, he started to bring the conversation in the direction of Gatō and Wave's recent history. Then they went in, and Haku saw Wave's urban face.

Something about her expression hardened. Behind her eyes, Naruto recognised a pain born not of shock but of recognition, an acute stab turning into dull but constant heartache. It was what he felt whenever he left the warmth of Ichiraku Ramen and once more felt the adults’ contemptuous glares on his skin.

Today he would be the one driving the knife deeper.

“This is what Gatō wants to preserve so he can keep getting rich off these people,” he told Haku. “And it's also what the ninja he's hired, a guy named Zabuza, is fighting to protect. It's hard to believe, isn't it? That someone would lay their life on the line to keep starving children on the streets, to keep everyone miserable and scared?”

Haku said nothing.

Naruto kept her moving, down the streets he remembered being most impoverished on his first time through, using the maps he'd memorised from the guidebook to locate places of maximum impact, like ruined residential areas and closed hospitals.

“It bothers me,” he said. “I keep thinking that we might lose, and then the whole country will stay like this forever.” He meant it. This was his first mission where something important was at stake, and this only made it more excruciating that suddenly he was having to weigh so many different things in the balance.

Haku still didn't say anything.

“So I keep telling myself that we have to win. We have to help these people beat Gatō, so they can have food and water, and shelter. And pride. That look in their eyes... I never want to see anyone looking like that again.

“I guess that's why I brought you here,” he confessed. “Sorry, I know it's not great date material, but I wanted you to understand what I'm doing here, in this country, and why.”

Haku managed a smile. “That's OK. I'm... I'm grateful you want to share something that matters to you with me.”

Eventually, they left. There were a couple of other places Naruto had on his list, scenic locations that gave Haku plenty of space to think as they stared out at beautiful vistas together. He didn't get in her way.

As it grew dark, and they began to head back, she turned to him. “Naruto, I want to thank you for today. It meant a lot to me to go on a date with you.”

He smiled. “Yeah. Me too.”

“Listen,” she went on, “tomorrow is the last day I'm going to get to spend with you. My master's feeling better now, and we're going to move on from this place. So make sure you come, OK? There's something important I have to tell you.”

Naruto’s eyes widened a little.

She smiled, a little sadly. “Wait until tomorrow. Goodbye, Naruto.”

-o-

It was early morning. In the process of performing miraculous feats of avoiding Tsunami lest she quiz him about the date, he'd had an idea, one last plan which almost certainly wouldn't work, and would doubtless lead to disaster somewhere down the line even if it did work, and would probably place him in terrible danger and not pay off at all, but it had to be done. And it had to be done now. Tazuna's itinerary had been drawn up, and starting tomorrow he'd be working on the bridge in person every day. And the bridge, a confined space surrounded by water, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, was where Zabuza would inevitably strike.

Naruto dispatched six clones on a special mission. He wished he could send more, but the final confrontation with Zabuza was coming up, and he wouldn’t be getting that chakra back for a while.

Then he went out and waited for Haku. Happily, his shadow clones had been working diligently, even during the date, so he pretty much had water walking down now. The hard part had apparently been not just staying above the surface, but managing chakra flow in the horizontal plane to prevent the river sweeping him away like some sort of moving floor.

Haku came soon enough.

“Hello, Naruto.”

“Hi, Haku.”

There was an awkward silence.

Naruto hated awkward silences. He'd been stuck in them his whole life, whenever somebody wanted to ignore him or get rid of him but couldn't quite figure out how. So he broke this one quickly.

“You know, you never did tell me the end of that story about your master, the ten jugs of pig grease and the panicking minister of foreign policy...”

And as Haku obliged, they fell back into the pattern of their previous conversations. Still, there was something between them now that hadn't been there before, and Naruto thought they were both aware of it. A certain tenderness, perhaps, combined with an unspoken sense of sorrow. They both knew that something precious was ending, and that it could not be protected or preserved. Even the brief time they'd had together was an illusion, a false peace between two people of whom one would inevitably have to kill the other. At least if Naruto failed.

Eventually, evening came, and then there was no more time.

“So what was it you wanted to tell me, Haku?”

Haku sighed. “Naruto, I'm not who you think I am.”

“I know.”

“You... do?”

“Your master is Zabuza, isn't he?”

Haku looked down at the grass, then back up at him. “But I don't want to fight you, Naruto. Please... stay out of the battle tomorrow. I don't want to have to kill you.”

“Are you really OK with this? Fighting for Gatō? To keep Wave as it is?”

Haku didn't say anything for a while.

“I'm my master's tool. If he wants me to fight, I have to fight.”

“Even if it's wrong?”

“You don't understand,” Haku said. “I owe my master everything. If he said the sky was green, I would do my best to live my life as if it was.”

“But... but you're better than that!” Naruto exclaimed. “You're intelligent, and experienced, and capable of making good decisions! You can't lie to yourself just because someone else says so!”

“I owe him everything,” Haku repeated. “Nothing I do will ever be enough to repay him, so I have to at least give him everything I can.”

Naruto, having rehearsed this conversation extensively in lieu of sleep, decided to try another tack. “You know he'll die. My team is strong, and Kakashi-sensei is incredibly strong. You're not just letting him fight for the wrong cause. You're not just letting him kill for the wrong cause. You're letting him die for it.”

Haku was silent.

Time passed.

“...I'll talk to him,” she said in a voice just above a whisper.

“What?”

“I'll talk to him,” Haku repeated. “Maybe he'll listen.”

Naruto felt a wave of relief.

“But Naruto, if he decides to fight, I have to be there at his side to protect him. It can't be any other way.”

Naruto nodded helplessly. “And that goes for me too. I can't let any of my team die.”

“Then I guess that's it,” Haku said with regret. “I want you to know that, even though I was trying to deceive you about who I was, I meant everything else. The time I've spent with you has been precious to me.”

“Me too,” Naruto told her. “You're the most amazing girl I've ever met.”

Haku smiled. Then, completely unexpectedly, she stepped over to him and kissed him. It was warm, and gentle, and soft, and made his heart sing. He felt a little dizzy when she pulled away.

“Oh, by the way...” Haku added, “I'm a boy.”

The dizziness intensified. Naruto attempted to make a considered response that would encapsulate all his feelings about this sudden revelation.

 “Bwuh?!”

Then he realised something. He wasn't feeling dizzy because he'd just discovered that he had had his first date, and his first kiss, with another boy. He was, in fact, feeling dizzy because Haku's lips had been poisoned. He hit the ground with a thud.

The last thing he saw was Haku dragging his body somewhere no one would ever find it.


	8. Chapter 8

“Nngk.”

Why was it so dark? And why did he have such a headache? Naruto staggered up and out of the middle of a thick clump of bushes, earning himself a few minor cuts in the process. He had no idea where he was, though he had an inkling that this was somewhere near the route he and Haku had taken at the start of their date.

Haku. Gaah. She—er, he had poisoned him. It made perfect sense, as a final option after negotiations had failed, but it still hurt to think about. If it hadn't been for the Demon Fox watching over his body...

Wait, he'd been unconscious. Oh, crap. That meant his clones had all popped. He'd originally planned to keep them going overnight by using some of those all-nighter pills he'd borrowed way back when from Kiba (who tended to do his revision in one madcap rush the night before the exam). But the second he collapsed, the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique had terminated, and the special mission with it.

As his muddled consciousness gradually sorted itself out, the clones' memories flooded back to him. They were not at all what he’d expected. His clones had worked very hard indeed yesterday, and some of what they'd discovered in the process gave him hope that this unexpected setback wasn't fatal. In a way, the unconsciousness had even helped, giving his brain time to process everything they'd learned and make it easy to draw conclusions on how to proceed.

He dispatched a new set of six clones. There was still a chance as long as they could complete their mission in time.

Wait, what _was_ the time?

Oh, cold hell. The sun was already high in the sky.

Naruto set off for the bridge at a dead sprint.

-o-

As he approached, he scanned the area, and he did not like what he saw.

At the far end, Kakashi-sensei was busy fighting Zabuza, and he was clearly at a disadvantage. Zabuza was surrounded by water on all sides, which he could manipulate for many of his techniques rather than having to spend chakra on creating it from scratch. Kakashi-sensei had to worry about friendly fire thanks to the fairly defenceless Sakura and Tazuna (though at least the battle appeared to have started before any of the other builders could arrive), and about minimising damage to the bridge, while Zabuza had no such compunctions. As if that wasn’t enough, Zabuza was wearing some kind of sparkling visor, which kept reflecting light into Kakashi-sensei's eyes and stopped him being able to look at Zabuza's face.

Sakura and Tazuna, meanwhile, had sensibly taken cover between a couple of stacks of construction materials. This shielded them from potential crossfire, and limited melee threats to frontal and aerial approaches, though at the cost of leaving them with nowhere to dodge. Fortunately, Zabuza seemed intent on settling the score with Kakashi-sensei before worrying about completing his mission.

All, of this, however, was a picnic compared to what was happening on the near side of the bridge. Sasuke was trapped inside some incredible technique that looked like it belonged in a manga, a dome of floating person-sized mirrors made of a translucent, ice-like substance. A masked figure in a loose green outfit whom Naruto immediately recognised as Haku kept flying between these mirrors at impossible speed, throwing needles at Sasuke as she—er, he moved. Sasuke was looking increasingly like a human pincushion.

As Naruto's run brought him closer, he could just make out Sasuke's eyes. They had turned bright red, with the only other colours being the black of the pupil and the two tomoe, those strange comma-like dots, around the edges.

This was bad. Very bad. The Sharingan was popularly acknowledged as one of the most overpowered dōjutsu, and generally one of the most powerful Bloodline Limits in existence. It granted the user the ability to see chakra with their own eyes, thus effortlessly recognising clones, disguises and illusions for what they were (though curiously shadow clones were exempt). It let them memorise and reproduce other people’s techniques after seeing them only once. And as if that wasn’t enough, it allowed them the ability to track enemy movements fractionally before they happened, making the Uchiha deadly taijutsu users. If Sasuke had managed to awaken his Sharingan and it still wasn't enough...

Just as Naruto thought this, Sasuke collapsed.

As he came into range, Naruto spotted a gap between two mirrors, just large enough for a person to conceivably squeeze through.

He stopped. The mirrors were true ice after all, and he could feel the biting cold at their heart even from here. For a second, he was curled up in the warmest corner again, wearing all four of the outfits he owned under a threadbare blanket, wondering what he could possibly have done to deserve winter. The Hokage had been furious when he found out, mostly with himself, and that was the last day Naruto spent in a flat where the landlord controlled individual heating. But all the apologies in the world couldn’t undo the past or take away the memories.

Then he looked at Sasuke again. He remembered them fighting side by side against the clones, and how Sasuke hadn’t hesitated to take on six pseudo-jōnin without any A-rank forbidden techniques, secret Uzumaki Style last resorts or (in his mind) teammates capable of looking after themselves.

Screw it. Uzumaki Naruto was the only one allowed to defeat his rival.

He made the hand seals, hoping he wasn’t too late. “Please don't work, please don't work, please don't work...”

                                                           

It worked. Naruto was now inside the dome, and Sasuke was somewhere on the outside. This meant that, for the purposes of Substitution Technique consent, Sasuke presently counted as an inanimate object.

“Naruto?!” Haku exclaimed. “That's impossible! You should have been out for at least twenty-four hours!”

“Dammit, Haku!” Naruto shouted. “How dare you?!”

“I... I just wanted you to be safe...” Haku’s voice was soft, unsuited to the masked assassin who’d just murdered a member of Naruto’s team.

“At what cost?!” Naruto demanded. “Did you think I'd just be OK with you killing the people I care about?! Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

Naruto put his hands together, but the instant his clones were fully formed, they were instantly pierced by needles through the heart.

“I'm sorry, Naruto,” Haku told him. “Please don't resist. All I can do now is keep you inside my Demonic Mirrors of Ice Crystals until my master finishes the job. Once that's done, there'll be no more need for us to fight.”

“No more _need_?!” Naruto repeated incredulously. “You think we can be anything but enemies after you kill the people I care about? Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

This time, too, the clones were obliterated before they could so much as move.

“Then we'll be enemies,” Haku replied with a sad finality. “But at least you'll still be alive. That's all I can do.”

Dammit. Naruto urgently needed a strategy. He hadn't anticipated Haku being _this_ fast or precise with his attacks. The only upside to his predicament was that the mirrors would conceal his fight with Haku from the others, giving him freedom to use his special techniques.

Naruto quickly threw a series of kunai at Haku, then used the opening while Haku dodged to make a fluid transition into a set of hand seals.

“Multiple Shadow Clone Techni—”

Pain blossomed from Naruto’s leg. _There had been no opening_. Haku’s evasion had been instant, his counter simultaneous. Even as he moved to another mirror, he’d thrown a needle at Naruto’s thigh, the slim piece of metal going all the way through and out of the other side while the pain disrupted his attempt to use his technique.

“Please don't fight me, Naruto. I know countless areas of your body where I can throw needles without doing permanent damage. I won't let you perform any more techniques.”

Naruto could see no solution. Haku had more than enough speed and precision to hit him as soon as he started making seals. He wasn't going to get back out of the dome of mirrors now that Haku's attention was solidly on him, and in his haste to save Sasuke he'd neglected to leave extra shadow clones outside the dome.

So that was it. He couldn't use the Shadow Clone Technique (or for that matter the normal Clone Technique). He couldn't use the Substitution Technique. He couldn't use the Transformation Technique. He couldn't use taijutsu. He _could_ use tree walking, but there was nothing to walk on except the mirrors, and Haku would surely knock him off the second he tried. And he didn't have any Uzumaki-style techniques that didn't rely on some combination of the above.

He was completely out of options. He'd never felt so frustrated at his own powerlessness before. Was _this_ the true face of genius ninja Uzumaki Naruto? He'd been so proud of himself, coming up with technique after technique that made the Academy basics look like children's toys, but in the end, was he nothing more than a wannabe doomed to be put in his place as soon as he finally met a _real_ ninja? Here he was, no more use than a civilian, and his team was going to die paying for his failure.

Except... except there was still the Final Option. He could ask the Nine-Brained Demon Fox for help.

He'd never done it before. He never wanted to. He didn't even know if it worked like that. And there was no question that having people find out about the monster inside him, and watch him unleash it of his own free will, would put an end to his hopes of not being alone more surely than anything he could reveal about his intelligence. Assuming, of course, that he lived that long, and that the Demon Fox didn't have the power to simply consume him if he was so foolish as to open its cage of his own free will.

He looked around, through the gaps in the mirrors. Somewhere in the distance, Kakashi-sensei was fighting for his life. Sakura was wide-eyed, trying desperately to control her breathing. Tazuna had his eyes open and watching the battlefield, but at the same time his hands were together and his lips were moving soundlessly. And Sasuke was probably dead, and would die of blood loss very soon even if he wasn't.

As Haku watched him silently from behind an expressionless mask, Naruto thought about a lot of things. He thought about Vash and the one mistake that had defined that man's life. He thought about the Hokage's rambling, ridiculously idealistic lectures about the Will of Fire which united the people of Leaf (though it apparently didn't unite them with Naruto). He thought about Haku's envy of Naruto’s “friends”. He thought about the street children, and the adults with empty eyes. He thought about Hinata announcing her grand ambitions in a tiny, trembling voice. He thought about Kakashi-sensei, the adult, the team captain, who had told him to make his own choices.

Naruto closed his eyes.

-o-

 

With a click, a bookshelf rotated out of sight, and another took its place. Next to it, a gas lamp hung from an elaborate ironwork frame filled with spiralling designs. The lamp’s light was just sufficient for comfortable reading in the armchair below, while shrouding the rest of the room in a gentle shadow.

This was Naruto's mindscape, equal parts clockwork and library. It had started out as a simple visualisation technique, a mnemonic trick called _genius loci_ , but then Naruto had got into a manga about an oracle who did most of his fighting in mindscapes. Now, greatly expanded with ideas borrowed from a variety of stories, this was the place where Naruto came to rest while other people thought he was spacing out during particularly boring classes.

But he wasn't here to rest now. Here, in a place where everything had been shaped by his imagination, there was one thing he did not remember creating. One place that did not belong. One door he didn’t dare to open.

Naruto took a few steps forward. There were a couple of distant clicks, and then the floor he was standing on, in fact a giant gear covered with an elegant red carpet, rotated out, sailing through a hazy blue void until it came to interlock with another. That other gear, consigned to the edges of Naruto’s mind except when an occasional quirk of the mechanism sent it to the heart, was where he’d found the anomaly.

It was no different to the other doors that separated the static rooms of his mindscape—not too large, not too small, a simple rectangle fitting perfectly in the middle of a gap between two bookshelves. Except that where Naruto’s doors were made of a pleasant varnished mahogany, this door’s base colour was an uncompromising white. Over it, circular bands of every colour endlessly overlapped like the ripples of rain on still water, the juxtaposition only making both feel stark.

Naruto would never have gone near it before. If he could, he would have left this door to stand here, unseen and untouched, until his dying day. Now, he stood before it, but he still couldn’t make himself reach out.

Yet here, in a place built entirely of illusions, Naruto could finally see the truth that Haku had realised from the beginning. Yes, Naruto didn’t know what friends were. He didn’t know how they worked. He didn’t know if the people he cared about had ever once thought of him as a friend. But if despite all that he found himself standing here, determined to save them or die trying, then it didn’t matter whether he was their friend—because they were his.

Naruto put his hand on the door.

Utter darkness. No sense of space. A narrow circle of a platform beneath his feet, known rather than seen to be there.

It was not what he'd expected. There should have been a cage, or a shrine covered with seals, or at any rate some kind of mystical barrier with him on one side and the Demon Fox on the other. Everyone knew that was how these things worked. Instead he felt small, and alone, and with no idea what to do next.

Before he could get his bearings, the eyes opened all at once.

They were all around him, far away but also vast. Thousands of eyes of every colour. Watching from every possible angle, even above and below. There was no hiding, no escape and no defence. Naruto screamed, stumbled and nearly fell off the platform into the endless abyss.

Something stopped him. A gentle golden glow encircled the platform, pushing against Naruto’s back like a forcefield and illuminating the platform’s meagre two-metre diameter.

Naruto looked down. There were four bands of light around the edge of the platform, marking the boundary between him and the darkness. Inside each one, strange black symbols he did not recognise were moving very fast, clockwise in the even-numbered bands and counter-clockwise in the odd-numbered ones. There was only one thing they could be—the Fourth Hokage’s seal.

Naruto looked back up. The myriad eyes were watching him with cold, dispassionate interest. None blinked. Naruto felt tiny, an insignificant insect trying to bargain for favours with a power infinitely beyond his comprehension, with only four narrow strips of light between him and a fate more terrifying than he could begin to imagine. Every last element of his being was screaming at him to flee at once, to push this place away to the most distant corners of his mind and to seal even the memory of it behind every psychic lock he could get his hands on.

But he'd already made up his mind. It wouldn't just be him that paid the price if he failed here.

“Hey, Kyubey!” he shouted into the darkness. “We're getting slaughtered out there! I know you want this body to stay alive as much as I do, so lend me your power!”

The eyes continued to gaze at him. There was no response.

-o-

 

Once again, Naruto put his hands together for a technique. Once again, Haku had no choice but to hurt him. He flew out of his mirror, reaching for a needle—but what he saw made his hand stop in mid-move.

Out of nowhere, without any seals, a mask began to form in front of Naruto's face. At first, it seemed like Naruto was copying Haku’s own stolen hunter-nin mask, but then the thing took full shape and it was _wrong_.

There were no eye sockets. Nothing to hold it in place. No markings. The only feature on that blank white oval, drawing itself into place as if an afterthought, was a pattern of overlapping rings of colour that belonged to no village Haku knew.

Haku’s mind froze—only briefly, but long enough for Naruto to complete the seal.

A shadow clone popped into existence in front of Naruto and slightly off the ground. Its hands were already in the Shadow Clone Technique position. Without any delay whatsoever, it summoned another such clone in front of itself. That one summoned another. Before Haku could act, and before even his ninjutsu-boosted movement could take him out of the way, the final shadow clone in the chain punched him in the face with staggering force.

Haku's mask shattered. The blow sent him soaring backwards so fast he nearly lost track of his surroundings. His reaction time was only just enough to dispel the ice mirrors before the impact of the one behind him broke his spine. He landed hard on the stone surface of the bridge.

“Naruto? What is this?!”

Naruto did not reply, and it came to Haku that this might not be Naruto any more. The masked figure's body language was completely different as it turned towards him, no hesitation and no wasted movement.

As Haku sprang to his feet, the figure threw a kunai.

Haku raised his own to block, confident in his speed. There was a brief blur of motion, and suddenly the flying kunai was a five-metre-long steel pipe heading for his face, with no time to dodge.

Slam!

His master absorbed the impact with the flat of his sword, miraculously staying on his feet after a blow that would have brought down any ordinary man.

Haku, now a few metres away, quickly reassessed the battlefield. His master had used the Substitution Technique on him, risking himself to place Haku out of danger. In theory, Haku should now have been facing Kakashi, but for some reason Kakashi wasn't attacking. He was running towards them instead, weapons down.

His master wasted no time in dealing with the more immediate threat.

“Water Element: Geyser Blade Technique!”

A thin, broad, high-pressure blade of water erupted beneath the masked figure's feet. The figure didn’t dodge.

Haku’s heart stopped. Even a Kage couldn’t survive a direct hit from his master’s Geyser Blade. No mask was going to save Naruto now.

But, impossibly, the figure rose, standing on the lethal razor’s edge as if it were any other body of water. As the blade dissipated, it lowered itself back to the ground, its body language still completely expressionless.

There was no human with that level of chakra control.

-o-

The worst-case scenario of all worst-case scenarios was in effect. The Demon Fox was loose—the beast that had killed Minato-sensei and half the village alongside him. Kakashi was no Minato-sensei, even after all these years. His team was going to be killed, and he was going to fail to save them. And this time he would almost certainly follow them, along with Zabuza, the fake hunter-nin and a large chunk of Wave.

If there was only a true Uchiha here, able to wield the full power of the Sharingan. If Obito had survived instead of him…

As soon as he heard and recognised the familiar thought, Kakashi wrenched himself out of the spiral with raw force of will. This was no time to give up, and no time to panic.

The Demon Fox hadn’t escaped its human host yet. That meant the seal hadn’t been destroyed, and that in turn meant there was still hope. Protocols existed for a partial awakening, even if nobody knew how they’d interact with Minato-sensei’s mystery seal.

“Truce!” Kakashi shouted to Zabuza.

“What?!”

“Truce! This thing easily has the power to kill us all!”

Even that brief exchange had given the Demon Fox too much time to act. An enormous storm of shuriken flew towards the three ninja.

“Earth Element: Flowing Earth Wall!” Kakashi thrust his hands down, and a thick wall of brown stone rose in front of the three just in time to block the first few shuriken.

Then the rest started to change direction to circumnavigate it.

Kakashi was stunned. His Sharingan eye had told him there were no chakra strings attached to the shuriken. It should not have been possible to manipulate them remotely. Then, watching the shuriken as they came round the edge, he very briefly saw it.

The shuriken's paths were intersecting as the Demon Fox kept throwing more, their blades briefly interlocking like clockwork gears and changing each other's direction. It required a level of timing and calculation beyond any living being—but the Nine-Brained Demon Fox had processing power to spare.

At the last second, Haku threw up a barrier of ice around them, deflecting the attack.

“What the hell have you brought here, Kakashi?” Zabuza demanded.

“That boy is the host for the Nine-Brained Demon Fox,” Kakashi said.

“The one that created the Leaf Crater where the old village used to be?” Zabuza asked in appalled disbelief.

Kakashi nodded, not wanting to waste time. It was true that the new Leaf Village was located inside the enormous crater left by the Demon Fox’s attack. They had used its highest wall to carve monuments to the Four Hokage as a reminder to the villagers that, even in the face of the most terrible danger, they were being watched over and protected. But the Hokage wasn't here right now, and Kakashi was the only one standing between the Demon Fox and unimaginable destruction.

“I have a plan,” he told the others, “but I'll need your help to keep it busy. Don't try to outsmart it, because you can't. Just overwhelm it with brute force so its attention is focused on us.”

Kakashi could see the reluctance in Zabuza's eyes, and couldn't fault him. Amidst the treacherous shifting grounds of the shinobi world, where truth was whatever your orders said it was, and the line between sin and virtue was named “permission to proceed”, a simple duel to the death had a purity all of its own. Having it rudely interrupted would leave a foul taste in anyone's mouth.

In one motion, Haku and Kakashi took down their barriers. The price of being unseen and unheard by the Fox was that it worked both ways, and now they had given it whole seconds to prepare. Kakashi quickly met Sakura's eyes, and her look of pure terror changed to one of terrified resolve. Then he began to fight.

The following battle was one of the most exhilarating experiences of Kakashi's life. Had it not been for his ability to keep track of chakra and super-fast movements with the Sharingan, Zabuza's near-limitless supply of water-based attacks, and Haku drawing out the full potential of his exceptionally flexible Bloodline Limit, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.

As it was, the battle was merely a nightmare. The Demon Fox had taken advantage of their discussion time to conceal shadow clones in every inch of the battlefield around them, and Kakashi half-suspected that they'd only had that much time at all because it was toying with them. The sheer brutality of its attacks, however, did not feel like a game at all.

-o-

The Demon Fox moved its head a couple of centimetres to the right to avoid a thrown kunai, not even bothering to expend the extra energy to block. The blade sailed harmlessly over the edge of the bridge.

“Water Element: Water Dragon's Explosive Bite!”

An enormous torrent of water surged up from beyond the edge of the bridge behind the Demon Fox, sweeping up the kunai as if it were a weightless leaf, and arced over the Fox's head, raining down piercing water bullets.

The Demon Fox dodged with precise, economical movements, moving systematically away as it did so. When the water suddenly took the shape of a furious dragon and slammed down on top of it, the Fox was ready to move out of the way before it landed.

“Ice Element: Snap Frost!”

The dragon instantly turned to ice in mid-fall, becoming sleeker and more aerodynamic as it did so, speeding up just enough that there was suddenly no time to dodge.

The Fox promptly thrust a kunai up at the dragon's maw at _exactly_ the right angle, exploiting a series of imperfections in the crystal to cause the entire thing to shatter around it, reverting back to water as it landed in a heavy but completely harmless shower around its target.

With that original kunai still in it.

“Lightning Element: Thunderlash!”

The moment the dragon unfroze, a whip of lightning snapped out from Kakashi's hands, grounding itself through the kunai and electrifying the water.

Or so it should have been, but at the same time, a piece of rubble in between Kakashi and the Fox flickered through shadow clone form and turned into a tall metal spike. It caught and grounded the whip, destroying itself in the process but leaving the Fox unharmed.

Kakashi silently cursed. They'd been at this for over a minute, and the only reason they were still alive was that the Demon Fox was apparently limited to the techniques for which Naruto's chakra channels were already conditioned.

Even that last three-way combo had been accomplished while simultaneously fending off shadow clones from multiple different directions. The clones were taking full advantage of the Demon Fox's incredible casting speed, and the fact that it had no need to improve mental focus by calling its technique names out loud. In fact, it never made any sound at all.

More specifically, the clones kept using the Transformation Technique to instantly shift forms in mid-combat. It only took one good hit to destroy a shadow clone, but at the same time shadow clones took on the full properties of the objects they were transformed into. It was frustrating trying to impale an opponent, only for them to turn into solid steel plate just long enough to deflect your blow, or to prepare to block a kunai, only for another clone to suddenly turn into a spear for your opponent to wield.

And the teamwork... Whereas the three shinobi were all experienced warriors easily capable of reading each other's combat styles and adjusting to match, the shadow clones seemed to act as a single hive mind, for all that the Shadow Clone Technique simply did not work that way. Zabuza, Haku and Kakashi's only advantage was access to a wider variety of chakra-based techniques, and they were being forced to push it to new, extreme levels.

-o-

“Naruto, you imbecile, what the hell do you think you're playing at?!” Sasuke's voice broke through the silence of the chamber where Naruto had just asked the Nine-Brained Demon Fox for help.

“Bite me, greaseball,” Naruto reflexively snapped. Then he looked up. “Wait, Sasuke? You're alive?!”

As he started to listen, he noticed the other sounds beginning to filter through. It was pandemonium. There were claps of thunder, the sound of things shattering, screams and grunts of pain. At least one muffled “Aargh!” clearly belonged to Kakashi-sensei. A sense of horror slowly dawned on Naruto.

“You can compress time in here, can't you?” he exclaimed. “All this time I've been waiting for your answer, you've been in control of my body.”

There was no reply, and the only motion was that of his reflection in the bottomless depths of thousands of dark pupils.

“That was Kakashi-sensei screaming. You were supposed to give me the power to protect my friends, not try to kill them!”

Somehow, the silence of the chamber seemed to deepen, its counterpoint the distant, muted noise of the real world heard as if from deep underwater. Naruto began to understand how naive he'd been, trying to negotiate with a vast, completely alien intelligence as if it were a rational partner seeking a mutually beneficial exchange. What it wanted, it simply took, and he had opened the door for it to do so.

“Let me out! The deal is off!” Naruto shouted. “Give me back my body!”

He looked around desperately, but there was no escape. All around, there were only the Demon Fox's eyes, and beyond them a darkness he never wanted to see illuminated.

He glanced down at the bands of light, his only allies in this insane space. He couldn't help noticing that the speed of the symbols in the outermost ring had slowed to a crawl, and its light was dim.

He knelt down, and placed his hands in the middle of the rings. “Please...” he whispered. “Please show me the way back.”

And then there was a path. A narrow path of golden light, stretching into the distance to a familiar white door.

Naruto ran. The myriad eyes watched him go, never blinking.

-o-

As he regained access to his senses, Naruto saw Sakura standing in front of him, her body language tense with a fight-or-flight response ready to kick in.

“Oh, thank Heaven!” she exclaimed, relaxing slightly. “You're back!”

“What... happened?” Naruto asked dazedly. “And where's Sasuke?”

“Kakashi-sensei used his Sharingan to put me under a genjutsu,” Sakura explained. “In the genjutsu, he told me to wait until that monster was completely focused on them, then use the Transformation Technique to turn into Sasuke and call out to you. He said if thinking Sasuke was dead made you lose control to the... the Nine-Brained Demon Fox, then maybe thinking he was alive would help you fight to get it back.”

“Then he's...”

“He's alive!” Sakura exclaimed. “I heard him groan when I was preparing to turn into him. I think with his Sharingan he must have dodged just enough for all those needles to miss vital areas.”

Naruto thought again about Haku's incredible speed, and wondered if the Sharingan had really been the only reason.

Meanwhile, on the other side, a bunch of white-masked shadow clones suddenly vanished.

“Truce over,” Zabuza said flatly. “Haku, that thing broke my ice visor, so make one for yourself and take on Kakashi. I'll eliminate the host boy and come join you.”

“Yes, master,” Haku responded helplessly.

-o-

As far as Naruto could guess, there was only one reason he was still alive. Zabuza had succumbed to the most terrifying threat in the shinobi world, the invisible killer that claimed countless ninja, genin and jōnin alike: faulty intel.

Zabuza knew that Team Seven had somehow taken out twice their number in jōnin-level clones. From Haku’s reports, he’d know that Sakura was no secret powerhouse, and that Sasuke hadn’t yet awakened his Sharingan. Only Naruto stood out with his Multiple Shadow Clone Technique. And now, Zabuza had learned that Naruto was a demon host, and he’d even had the chance to witness the Demon Fox’s power for himself. What other explanation could there be for Team Seven’s impossible victory?

In other words, Zabuza was wary of him. Instead of obliterating Naruto in a single sword stroke as Naruto knew he could, the jōnin was hanging back, unwilling to be caught off guard by Naruto’s devastating demon host abilities. The ones Naruto didn’t actually have.

Naruto had to exploit Zabuza’s wariness. He had to amplify Zabuza’s smouldering uncertainty, fanning it into a flame that consumed the jōnin’s powers of analysis. If he could just keep Zabuza off-guard long enough for Kakashi-sensei to… to deal with Haku…

No. No distractions. He was Uzumaki Naruto, Number One Ninja at Surprising People, and he was going to crush every last one of Zabuza’s expectations.

He began his first hand seal, and in that moment of concentration Zabuza disappeared from his sight.

“Uzumaki-style Ninjutsu: Deadly Doormat Technique!”

A column of shadow clones went into feet-first slides at Naruto’s feet, one after the other, each using the Transformation Technique to turn into a narrow slab of very smooth ice.  Zabuza found his lightning-fast charge turning into an uncontrollable forward slide, and as he slid off each slab of ice, it reverted into clone form and tried to stab him.

Sure, Zabuza may have started out moving too fast for Naruto’s eyes to track him. But you didn’t need to see your opponent if you’d observed his clones’ fighting style, and knew that he would close the distance in one linear motion.

“Water Element: Reverse Water Prison Technique!”

A sphere of water completely enveloped Zabuza’s body, separating him from the ice. He fell onto the next slab with his full weight, shattering it instantly and bringing him below the level of the other clones’ stabbing kunai. The sphere vanished as Zabuza swung his sword, slashing through every last clone with his extensive reach.

Naruto wasn’t done.

“Uzumaki-style Ninjutsu: Loving Embrace Technique!”

As Zabuza rose, he found himself in the middle of a crowd of naked young women. At his age, he was probably well-versed in pleasures of the flesh, but the sight of perfectly-shaped body parts where he expected weapons nevertheless surprised him for a split second. That was all it took for the women to drape themselves all over him, shout “Transformation Technique!” and turn into intertwined bladed chains (exactly like the one wielded by the Demon Brothers). Zabuza was now unable to move without slicing himself into salad.

The missing-nin wasted no time. “Haku!”

Haku, busy in a kunai-on-kunai clash with Kakashi-sensei, quickly formed a few seals with his free hand. Kakashi-sensei looked as shocked at this as Naruto felt.

Zabuza stood perfectly still as a blast of ice spiked up from the ground around him, freezing the chains while leaving him unharmed. With a mighty shrug, he shattered the frozen clone chains, just in time to block the new wave of clones trying to cut his throat. They’d had time to get in too close to be cut by his sword, but that just meant he broke them with his bare hands.

Now it was his turn.

“Water Element: Water Bullet!”

Naruto leapt sideways to avoid the rapid blasts of high-pressure water.

But as he moved, Zabuza swapped with a piece of piping right next to Naruto's new location. Before Naruto could react, he'd been grabbed by the throat, and his head was plummeting towards the stone floor.

“Shadow Clone Technique!”

At the last second, Naruto's momentum was softened by a pre-transformed shadow clone mattress. He just managed to tuck his head in enough to avoid doing horrible things to his neck, then quickly grabbed the suddenly-vulnerable Zabuza and pulled him down into a reverse over-the-shoulder throw.

As Zabuza went down, Naruto used the momentum to keep going over him and off the mattress. And the second he was off, the mattress quickly turned into a clone, then, as Zabuza started to fall to the new lower height, into a bed of nails.

Zabuza, however, failed to be impaled. He calmly got up, completely unharmed, stretched as Naruto was briefly paralysed by horror, and picked up his sword again.

“Haven't been on one of those since genin training. Good times.”

He registered Naruto’s aghast expression. “What? I'm sure to you water walking must be a big deal, but in the old Mist you were culled if you couldn't do it by the age of five. Now spike walking—that was at least an interesting challenge for a while.”

Naruto backed away out of Zabuza's range.

“Well,” Zabuza told him, “that was a nice warm-up. But how about you show me what you can really do? Or are you just another kid without that monster to do your fighting for you?”

Zabuza was starting to relax, which meant Naruto was running out of time. He risked a quick glance over in Kakashi-sensei's direction.

The battle there seemed pretty even. Haku was scarily fast, but Kakashi-sensei had apparently fought very fast people before, and the experience advantage was a big deal when it came to things like setting up openings and taking advantage of the terrain. He was, for example, getting great mileage out of the fact that his Earth Element structures were permanent until destroyed or dispelled, and could easily reshape the battlefield, whereas Haku's ice required concentration to maintain, and was mainly being used for one-off attacks and barriers.

Naruto couldn't slack off either. “Uzumaki-style Genjutsu: Void Prison!”

It took only a second before Zabuza cut through it with a single swipe of his sword.

“Interesting idea. But I get the feeling you're still not taking me seriously. Water Element: Fist of the Water God!”

An enormous torrent of water rose over the edge of the bridge behind Zabuza like a living thing, and thrust itself in Naruto's direction. But between the instant chakra-based acceleration Naruto had accidentally learned during tree walking training, and his chakra control that transcended a genin’s capabilities, he was able to move just far enough to avoid having every last bone in his body being shattered by the impact.

He charged back in, through the blind spot created by the tail-end of the water stream, summoning shadow clones on the way. His horde attacked Zabuza with everything they had.

As his clones were cut down in swathes, Naruto began to feel a sense of awe. He was starting to _see_ Zabuza. Whether it was a lingering remnant of the Demon Fox’s insight, the accumulated experience of countless fallen clones, or the fatigue from Zabuza’s fight with Kakashi and then the Fox finally starting to catch up with him, the missing-nin was no longer the incomprehensible blur of destruction that he’d been at the start of the fight. He was still strong, immeasurably stronger than the likes of Naruto, but he was finally starting to look like a human being—and human beings weren’t invincible.

Naruto created and dispelled a clone, sending the rest a single instruction. They charged in, every one of them at once, with a suicidal abandon that would have been impossible for an ordinary, sane person. It wasn’t enough to faze Zabuza—not even close—but the abrupt shift in attack pattern forced him to briefly use his sword as a shield while he adjusted his stance, just like the water clone that had fought Sasuke.

Seeing his chance, Naruto tried to stab Zabuza through the hole in his sword, and Zabuza predictably re-angled the blade to turn the opening away from him.

That was when Naruto's wristband turned into a shadow clone. At the same time, a kunai lying on the ground behind that clone turned into another one, leapt towards him, and turned into a chain in mid-air. The clone grabbed it as it flew into his hand, and guided it through the hole in the sword.

On the other side, another kunai turned into a clone at the same time, grabbing the chain's other end. Both clones sharply yanked the chain down, breaking Zabuza's guard. To lay down those clones without Zabuza noticing—that had been the true purpose of the Void Prison.

Naruto’s kunai met Zabuza’s stomach, and this time there was nothing in the way.

But at the same time Zabuza's fist met Naruto's solar plexus.

Unable to dodge, instead Zabuza hit Naruto so hard that the genin flew backwards before his blade could penetrate. As Naruto caught himself, Zabuza pulled his sword upwards, tearing the chain out of the clones' hands, and then cut through both clones in one sweep. As for the chain, he threw it towards Haku, who froze it in mid-air while trying to pierce Kakashi-sensei with an ice spike using his other hand.

“Water Element: Water Clone Technique!”

Naruto suppressed a stab of panic. Where was the water clone? He couldn't see it anywhere. Last time, they'd turned up next to the caster, but Naruto didn't know how much leeway the technique gave. He had to—

An arm as solid as iron wrapped around his throat from behind, leaving him completely unable to breathe. Too late, Naruto realised that he was standing in the pool of water left behind by the Fist of the Water God Technique.

Before he could do anything, two more water clones grabbed his arms. Fully immobilised, he could only watch as Zabuza hefted his sword and charged in for a one-hit kill.

Naruto's life flashed before his eyes, a last look back at a world that had always hated him and sought to deny his existence. The few individual sparks of light he saw were set against a tapestry full of familiar, dark materials. Cruelty. Apathy. Contempt. It would end here, the way it had always been destined to end: with Naruto standing alone, his deceptions and his tricks no longer enough to keep the malice of the world at bay. In the end, his defiance had never meant anything at all.

But as his flashback ended, and the past finished pouring itself into the present, it had one last surprise left. Brand new memories, only seconds old, with the power to change everything.

Naruto had been born into a world of rules designed to make him suffer. Demon hosts were to be feared and hated, so he was a pariah in his own village. Those who were too different could not be tolerated, so he had to keep the most important parts of himself secret. And now, its latest rule forbade him to choose his own friends and foes, so he had to die fighting his first love and the man at the heart of her—his world.

Well, not anymore. Naruto looked death in the eye... and grinned. Screw the rules, he had intelligence.

Every single shadow clone left on the battlefield transformed back and screamed three simple words at the top of his voice. “Gatō is dead!”

Zabuza froze in place, his sword so close to completing its swing that Naruto could feel it drawing a line of blood. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Haku and Kakashi-sensei jump back out of each other's strike range.

“Explain. Now.”

The water clone holding his throat slightly relaxed its grip.

“The shadow clones I sent to assassinate him just popped,” Naruto told him as loudly as his aching throat would allow. “They did it. There's no one to pay you for this mission anymore.”

Zabuza narrowed his eyes. “You? Assassinate Gatō? Why should I believe you?”

Naruto described the memories his shadow clones had sent back of the man in as much detail as he could: his location, his appearance, his clothes, his voice, his personal bodyguards, the sickening way he'd begged for mercy—absolutely everything Zabuza could use to verify that Naruto wasn't making it up.

“I sent my clones on the assassination mission yesterday morning. It got messed up when Haku poisoned me, but luckily they'd had time to learn that Gatō had just come to Wave and was nearby. He'd brought a heck of a lot of mercenaries with him, too, almost as if he was planning to betray someone.”

Zabuza frowned. “Haku, go to the location he’s described and check his story.”

He looked back to Naruto. “If he takes too long, or if Kakashi makes one wrong move, the first thing I'll do is slit your throat.”

Naruto tried and failed to nod.

Kakashi-sensei went off to administer first aid to Sasuke, under Zabuza's watchful eye, and the silence stretched on.

-o-

“Master, it's true! I had them show me the body!” Haku sounded like the happiest boy ever to return from a corpse viewing.

Zabuza sighed. “Great. We're broke again. I'm half tempted to kill you guys just for that, but Gatō was an asshole, and Haku's been trying to convince me you're the best thing since sliced bread, so maybe we'll call it quits for now.”

Haku blushed.

“I've told the kid a thousand times that emotions and attachments are death to a ninja,” Zabuza added, “but does he listen?”

Kakashi-sensei shook his head sympathetically, for all the world as if he was talking to a neighbour or a co-worker rather than a man who only a few minutes ago had been out for his blood. “That's the younger generation for you. No respect for their elders. I don't know how we put up with them.”

Zabuza turned to Naruto. “Listen, boy. You managed to find a solution where nobody we care about has to die, and this little country even gets its shot at salvation. I appreciate that. But…”

His expression changed. In the depths of his eyes, Naruto could see blades whose purpose wasn’t combat, stained with colours only medics knew.

“If you ever cheat me out of my income again,” Zabuza growled, “I swear by the Sage of Six Paths that I will hunt you down and practise every one of the Hundred Tortures of the Bloody Mist on your still-living body.”

Naruto shivered. “Yessir. I mean no sir. I mean I promise I won't.”

Before stepping back, Zabuza held Kakashi-sensei’s gaze for a long second, but Naruto would probably never know what passed between them.

Then it was Haku's turn.

“Naruto, thank you. For everything. I don’t have words to tell you how glad I am we didn’t have to kill you.”

“Yeah,” Naruto replied. “Same here. Meeting you has meant more to me than I know how to express.”

Haku gave a bittersweet smile. “Fare well, Naruto. I doubt we'll ever meet again.”

And before Naruto could say anything else, a blast of icy wind swept over the bridge. When it faded, Zabuza and Haku were gone.


	9. Chapter 9

A week passed before Sasuke was well enough to travel, or so he let the others believe. The last thing he wanted right now was to go out there and face their pity. Let them frolic outside, basking in the glory of victory. He would stay here and wrestle with the unbearable truths that the Battle of the Bridge had revealed to him.

He’d finally awakened his Sharingan. His Uchiha birthright. The Bloodline Limit that had made his clan the greatest in the world. And he’d turned out to be unworthy of it.

It was said that ninja experienced a brief spike of power when they finally awakened a new ability. Yet even with that, he’d been defeated, no, crushed by the first serious challenger he’d ever faced.

Sasuke knew why. It wasn’t that his Sharingan hadn’t been up to the task of seeing through Haku’s attack patterns. As Haku toyed with him, showing off his ability to casually injure Sasuke over and over and over again, his movements had become clearer, not exactly slower but easier to track, as if his eyes knew in advance where to look. But then his body couldn’t keep up.

He wasn’t fast enough, or agile enough, or skilled enough to wield the information the Sharingan was giving him as a weapon. He was pathetic, so weak that the Sharingan became a sword too heavy for him to lift. All it did was drain his chakra, and barely keep him alive long enough for Naruto to _save him_.

And Naruto… even lamenting his own weakness was preferable to having to think about Naruto.

-o-

Too much had happened, and Naruto didn’t know how he was supposed to behave. Kakashi-sensei, as a member of the older generation, had already known about the Demon Fox, and didn’t seem to hold its accidental unleashing against him. In fact, he seemed to be avoiding the subject altogether, as well as the equally thorny issue of Naruto’s unsanctioned actions. Naruto would have been worried, but he knew how it felt to be rejected by an authority figure ostensibly responsible for his well-being, and this wasn’t it. Whatever was going on with Kakashi-sensei, it wasn’t Naruto’s problem, at least for now.

On the other hand, Sakura had completely freaked out once the adrenaline wore off, and getting that response from a friend (he was learning to use the word now) turned out to hurt a lot more than it did from strangers. But she adjusted with admirable speed, perhaps because she’d been the one to break him free of the Demon Fox’s hold. A monster was always less scary when you’d already beaten it once.

Well, maybe not always. Naruto had technically got the best of Zabuza, and the missing-nin was no less terrifying. Naruto had always known, as a vague cached thought, that jōnin were “strong”. But it was only during that battle that he came to appreciate what that meant. Zabuza could not be fought on equal terms. If Naruto tried, there would simply be no fight. If he relied on tricks instead, Zabuza was strong enough to break through all of them with sheer brute force. And on top of that, Zabuza had his own repertoire of powerful ninjutsu. If he’d decided to use his water clones from the start, or the Geyser Blade instead of the Water Bullet, Naruto’s own abilities simply wouldn’t have mattered.

Could Naruto reach those stellar heights someday? No, he had to reach them. The world was still out to get him, and every enemy was a potential Zabuza, ready to crush him with a single blow. Beating the world, turning it into a place where someone like him could live, was going to take all the power he could get and more.

Meanwhile, one small part of that world, blissfully ignorant of demon foxes and power levels, was treating him the same way as the rest of the team—as a great hero who had risked his life to save their country. It felt good, in an unfamiliar and disorienting kind of way. The experience of large numbers of people expressing positive feelings towards him was completely alien to Naruto, and had him regularly checking for genjutsu.

The mood in Wave as a whole was changing. After initial disbelief that Gatō was really gone, there was general jubilation. A parasite rather than a ruler, Gatō had been smart enough to leave much of the Wave bureaucracy intact, albeit with overseers (now fled or dead) to make sure his ruinously high taxes were collected on time. Now, that bureaucracy was able to make use of the money Tazuna’s supporters had originally gathered for mercenary hire, and start rebuilding the country’s infrastructure and economy. Though Wave’s rebirth would be slow and by no means easy, there was already a sense of hope blooming among the people.

The bridge, the keystone of this rebirth, would not be ready to take daily traffic for months yet. Even so, the hastily-thrown-together provisional government had made the decision to hold the dedication ceremony today, in the evening, before the group responsible for its salvation set out on their journey home tomorrow.

In the meantime, everyone was free to spend their last day as they would. For Naruto, this meant a walk to a certain clearing, and along the route of his first date with Haku. It still didn’t make sense to him that Haku had turned out to be a boy, or that even now that he knew, his feelings didn’t seem to have changed. Trying to figure out that part of him felt like looking into a black hole—apparently, love was simply too weird for any of the analytical tools at his disposal. The one thing he knew was that he hoped to see Haku again one day.

That and the fact that nobody else must ever know. If he himself could barely understand what it all meant, how could he expect anyone else to do so? The best he could hope for from his friends, he suspected, would be endless and insensitive teasing. But somehow... that was OK too. It would be a secret for just the two of them.

-o-

Sasuke was lying in bed as before, reflecting on the tragic fall of the Last Uchiha, when he heard a knock on the door.

“Hey, Sasuke, can I come in?”

“Inari? Yeah.”

As a guest in the boy’s home, Sasuke couldn’t exactly tell him to go away, much as he wasn’t looking to hearing again about how Naruto, Kakashi-sensei and even Sakura had saved the day while the Academy’s top graduate was busy lying in a pool of his own blood.

But Inari’s gaze was inexplicably lacking in either pity or contempt.

“Sasuke, I wanted to say... I'm sorry for what I said back then. You were right about everything.”

Those were the last words Sasuke had expected to hear. He had to briefly flick his Sharingan on to make sure it wasn’t a Transformed Naruto playing a prank. (Why had such a glorious ability awakened so late?)

 “Yeah?” he asked warily.

“Yeah,” Inari said. “There are real heroes, and you're one of them, and I'm really glad I was wrong about you.”

Sasuke didn't say anything for a bit.

“Were you?” he suddenly asked.

Inari gave him a look of incomprehension.

“I didn't do anything,” Sasuke told him. “Even with these eyes, all I could do was get beaten up like a loser until somebody else bailed me out. If you want a hero, go look elsewhere.”

But Inari didn’t seem swayed by Sasuke’s cold statement of fact. If anything, he seemed more confident.

“Weren't you the one who told me not to look down on people who were trying to do the right thing, even if they failed?”

Sasuke was at a loss for words, and not just because he’d been out-argued by a pre-schooler.

“You told me that if I was too weak, I should man up and train until I got stronger,” Inari went on. “And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get stronger until I'm a hero like you. And then the next time somebody threatens my country, I'll be strong enough to protect everyone.”

“Man up and train, huh?” Sasuke echoed.

“That’s what you’d do, right, Sasuke?”

A few minutes after Inari left, Sasuke sighed, got up, and headed out to the woods.

-o-

_June 31 st. Sunny._

_Dear Diary,_

_Sasuke’s finally up! I just saw him leave the house! I've been worried about him all week—his injuries must have been so much worse than I thought if he hasn't even been able to leave his room. I bet he fought that Haku like a lion._

_Haku was weird. I swear he and Naruto had a “romantic moment” before he left. Only... he is a boy, right? And that sort of thing doesn't happen in real life, only in books and movies. And even if it did, Naruto doesn't swing that way. He's been asking me out for as long as I can remember. He'd better not think I'm boyish. I think I should hit him a few times just to be sure._

_Did I mention I saved everyone's lives last week? All right, maybe I did, but it’s worth saying again! Kakashi-sensei used his Sharingan, and he was all like, “You're the only one who can do this, Sakura”, and I was like, “Leave it to me!” And then I snapped Naruto out of his weird demonic possession thing and everyone was like, “Wow, Sakura, you're the best. We're sorry we ever doubted you”. OK, so maybe those weren't their exact words. But Kakashi-sensei said I did a great job guarding the client! He didn't say that to anyone else!_

_Anyway, tonight's the night of the big dedication ceremony. There's going to be dancing, and fireworks and stuff, and it's going to make the perfect first date for me and Sasuke. He hasn't said yes yet, but I just know he will! After all, I saved his life. That means we're meant to be together, right?_

-o-

“And then the west wing is going to extend over here, and we can have guest rooms over there, and a conservatory there...”

Tazuna was waving his arms and pointing to seemingly random features of the landscape near the family home, while Tsunami was looking on in bemusement.

“But Dad, what are we going to do with all that extra space?”

“You'll need it when you've got your husband, and lots of children running around all over the place,” Tazuna explained matter-of-factly. “And then I'll certainly want some room to myself without them getting under my feet.”

“Husband?” Tsunami queried. “Even if I was going to remarry, I don't have my eye on anyone right now.”

“What, you mean you're not done seducing that ninja fellow yet?” Tazuna gasped. “Well, hurry up, girl, before he buggers off!”

Tsunami blushed. “Dad! We're not like that.”

Tazuna wagged his finger admonishingly. “You're missing a golden chance there, Tsunami. Men like him don't come along every day. But anyway, I was thinking we could have a courtyard branching off there...”

-o-

It was early evening, still light, and what looked like the entire population of the Country of the Wave had gathered in front of the platform erected by the near end of the bridge. A suggestions box stood nearby, labelled “Ideas for Bridge Names”.

“...and now, it is time for the speech from Team Seven, without whom this bridge would not exist right now. Captain Hatake, would you please grace us with a few words?” the official in charge of the ceremony asked.

Kakashi stalled for time with a humble bow while trying to suppress his panic. No one had warned him he would have to make a speech in front of an entire country. Or at all. Ever. Big emotional inspirational speeches were what he kept Gai around for.

“Um... yes, well, of course, that is...”

“Kakashi-sensei, would you mind if I said something?”

“Go ahead, Naruto!” Kakashi stepped back from the podium with the speed of a trap disarming specialist who’d just cut the wrong wire.

Naruto took centre stage and surveyed the crowd. He'd been preparing for this. And even though the only people present to whom it might matter already knew, and none of the rest had ever seen the mask he was about to set aside, it still felt like coming out at long last.

“People of the Country of the Wave! My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I would like to say a few words about courage. When I came to Wave, I'd heard a lot about its beauty, its culture, its once and future wealth. But I had not heard about its courage. The courage of the bridge-builders who risked their lives as they worked day after day. The courage of everyone who gathered the goods for reopening trade with the outside world, giving up everything they had for a brighter future. The courage of Tazuna and those who helped him take his journey, even knowing that discovery would bring a tyrant's rage down on them. And, just as importantly, the courage of you, the people, who lived for years under Gatō's oppression, in unimaginable poverty and suffering, without ever giving up hope.

“I know suffering. I know how tempting it is to give in, to stop trying to live and instead just try to survive. And I salute the great courage you showed in continuing to live, and hope, day after day.

“Your courage is what inspired me and my fellow ninja to fight the way we did. It kept us going, no matter what Gatō tried to throw at us. And it's inspired me to dream in a way I'd never dreamt before. I'm going to become the Hokage, the champion and protector of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, and I'm going to be the greatest Hokage in history! I will live up to the standard of courage you've displayed, and I will not be beaten by even the strongest enemy, just as you refused to be beaten by Gatō.”

The applause was uproarious.

-o-

As Team Seven walked down to the site of the main festivities, watching the first Gatō effigies being lit up in the distance, Sakura leaned over towards Naruto. “Laying it on a bit thick back there, weren't you?”

Naruto shrugged. “It's what they needed to hear. Tazuna's bridge is going to give them back their prosperity, but they also need to regain their pride.” He noticed that his register had shot up once again from excitement, but, just this once, he didn't try to restrain it.

“So, Hokage, you say?” Kakashi-sensei asked. “Does that mean you've decided to work hard to make everyone in the village acknowledge you?”

“Acknowledge me? Screw that!” Naruto laughed. “They've long since forfeited the right to have me care about their opinions. No, I'm going to become a Hokage the likes of which the world has never known. I'm going to protect them, and save their lives, over and over again. The innocent will feel only healthy gratitude... but the guilty will live every moment of their lives knowing that they owe all they have to the man they hated and tried to break.

“That,” he told them, “is how Uzumaki Naruto does revenge.”

And Team Seven walked down towards the sounds of singing and dancing, leaving the Bridge of Courage behind them.


	10. Chapter 10

Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage, listened to countless mission reports every week. Some of them were tragic. Others, uplifting. Many were unremarkable, and most were routine. Very, very few sounded like they’d come straight from the pages of a children’s adventure novel.

He'd suspected he might regret letting Naruto loose on the unsuspecting wider world, but the boy had truly surpassed his expectations. Within the space of a single C-rank escort mission, he'd managed to overcome a jōnin, unleash and re-imprison an eldritch horror, win the brewing civil war between Gatō and Wave’s soon-to-be-hired mercenaries before it had even begun, and alter Leaf's status in the country's eyes from “favoured trading partner” to “land of invincible heavenly saviours”. Hiruzen looked forward to the next time Kurenai complained about _her_ genin going outside mission parameters.

“Thank you, you three. You are dismissed. Naruto, please stay behind.”

Kakashi, Sasuke and Sakura bowed and left.

Naruto’s expression shifted, no longer the familiar far-off stare of an inattentive boy bored with formalities, but instead something wary and intent.

“What do you want to talk about, old man?”

“Naruto,” Hiruzen set Kakashi’s papers to one side, mentally clearing space for the coming conversation, “I need you to tell me everything about your experience with the Nine-Brained Demon Fox. Everything. Even the things you didn't tell Kakashi.”

“What things I didn't tell...” Naruto trailed off.

“Oh, screw it,” he said after a second’s thought. “I'm going to make you a deal. I'll tell you everything if you tell me everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“About the Demon Fox, and my parents, and what really happened twelve years ago. I think it's long past time I knew.”

Hiruzen had wondered when this conversation would take place. Naruto was naturally inquisitive, and no moratorium could protect a village-wide secret from him forever. After reading Mizuki’s confession, Hiruzen had spent a long time, perhaps more than he should have, pondering and preparing, striving to anticipate Naruto’s questions and find the answers that did the least damage.

“Did it not occur to you,” he made the necessary opening move, “that there might be very good reasons for you to remain ignorant of certain matters?”

“Yes, it did. I know I'm young, and only a genin, and between my general ignorance and my low security clearance there's a lot of stuff you feel you can't trust me with. And if I thought this secrecy was your independent judgment, I might even try to respect it.”

Naruto took a deep breath.

“But this whole scenario is just too stupid. What kind of idiot puts an indiscriminate, uncontrollable superweapon inside a child and just sort of hopes nobody notices? What kind of idiot then lets everybody and their dog bully that child, eroding his loyalty to the village when he can destroy it in the blink of an eye? And let's not even talk about the security implications of turning a highly valuable yet completely defenceless child into a social pariah whom, forget protecting, half the village would _kill_ if they were prepared to get their own hands dirty and thought they could get away with it. Frankly, it's a miracle I've made it this far without being kidnapped or assassinated by enemy agents, or made to meet with an unfortunate accident by a local.

“They call you the Professor, the most intelligent ninja Leaf's ever known. There is no way you're stupid enough to have set this situation up yourself, which means someone else overruled you.”

Hiruzen controlled his expression carefully, while reeling on the inside. Was this truly the same Naruto who spent all his time playing pranks and reading manga? The indefatigable but ultimately somewhat simple boy who took disastrous exam scores almost as badges of pride, and invested all his cunning in surprising people and finding ever new ways to draw attention? Just what had happened to him in Wave, that he should suddenly talk like this, throwing Hiruzen's own failed arguments from twelve years ago right back in his face?

Before Hiruzen could adjust to this, a pattern that completely defied his expectations, Naruto continued.

“You've always been caught in the middle between good and evil, haven't you?” the boy asked rhetorically. “You erased my parents' names from my birth certificate, changed the date, and told me their deaths were part of a mission so secret you weren't even allowed to say who they were. Then you gave me my mother's surname anyway.”

Hiruzen nodded mutely. It had been the only thing he’d managed to get a compromise on. If the child had to be hated so much, he’d argued, then no family would consent to him sharing their name. But if he were bestowed with a name that had no other bearers, it would be a clear red flag to someone who knew what to look for. In the event, time had shown that people were perfectly happy to assume the boy some distant relative of Kushina’s, taken in as a refugee in much the same way as Kushina herself.

“You let the villagers hate me, but you yourself were always kind to me, even though you should have been too busy and important to ever talk to some random boy. You let the Academy instructors screw up my education, but when you noticed Iruka-sensei treating me like a person, if a very bad one, you talked to him, and whatever it is you said made a huge difference.”

How had Naruto known about that, Hiruzen wondered. Indeed, how had he known any of it? This wasn't some sudden transformation. This was something more. Had he—and everyone else—been underestimating the boy all along?

“This is your time to make a choice,” Naruto told the older and wiser shinobi. “You can stay stuck in the middle, not evil enough to do what everyone else is doing, but not good enough to do what's right. Or you can help me. There are things I need to know, and the longer I go without knowing them, the more likely things are to go horribly wrong. You've just seen that you can't protect me, least of all from the consequences of my own decisions. And if I am to make the right decisions, I need to base them on the truth.”

Hiruzen sighed. Clearly, he had not been the only one to practise a thousand versions of this conversation. Naruto’s words bore no trace of spontaneity. They were arguments, supported by emotional manipulation of a grade Hiruzen had never before seen in a genin. And convincing arguments at that.

Emotional manipulation was not a weapon Hiruzen feared. A master of genjutsu could play their victim’s mind like a shamisen, and Hiruzen had placed more of those in the ground than Naruto had had hot dinners. (Perhaps a dozen.) He could fight back, using all the power of insight at his disposal to cut through Naruto's reasoning and put the boy back in his place. But the fact remained that somewhere, deep down, he wanted the absolution that came with honesty. That way, one day, he might be able to face Minato's shade with the beginnings of a clear conscience.

“I suppose total containment is out of our reach at this stage anyway,” he told Naruto as he made his choice. “Not with Zabuza, Tazuna and this Haku boy all knowing about the Demon Fox.” He lit his pipe with a sense of resignation, preparing for twelve years of conspiracy to go up in smoke and needing that extra touch of familiar routine to help ground himself for what was to come.

“Very well,” he said. “But first, tell me what happened.”

Naruto told him. The facts were simple, but all along, it felt as if Naruto was skirting around the edges of some greater truth, something he refused to put into words lest doing so make it more real.

The Demon Fox. The living nightmare eating away at the heart of the village. A fear in the back of every Hokage’s mind that they might be the one to fail, to accidentally slacken the chain and bring the Fox within reach of something to consume. Minato had failed, and the memory of that night would never fade, but in his failure he had also succeeded beyond measure, at last creating a seal that could not be broken from within.

Hiruzen had seen the Demon Fox in its material form. So counter-intuitively small, so innocent-looking… and radiant with the indescribable horror of a thing which _did not belong_. His mind had refused to explore its image, as if to touch it even with his thoughts was to break quarantine. To this day, he did not know what he had been protected from, or what kind of being Minato must have become in order to be immune during his last few seconds.

Meanwhile, Naruto, an unprepared twelve-year-old boy, had faced the Demon Fox head-on, without even the dubious protection of physical distance. Yet he had found the strength in himself not only to stand his ground but to _bargain_ with the thing. To be sure, Naruto lived and breathed defiance the way fish breathed water. But the mere sight of that abomination had paralysed a Kage. Hiruzen felt a new wave of awe for Minato, whose seal must have suppressed more than just the Demon Fox's power.

Even with that protection, Naruto’s account was fragmented, irrational, and in some ways contradictory. Hiruzen was one of the few who could understand why. He could describe the Fox in words. White fur, red eyes, a tail that flicked casually back and forth. Put that way, it sounded almost cute.

It was the same for Naruto. To an outsider, it sounded as if he’d seen a stripped-down version of the mokumokuren, the fairy-tale eyeball spirit that lived in shoji screens and could be banished through basic household repairs. Unnerving, certainly, but what was there to fear? A hundred disapproving glares?

The Demon Fox was its own emotion. Just as it was futile to speak of love to one who had never loved, or to speak of fear to one who had never been afraid, so it was futile to speak of the Demon Fox and expect to be understood through the power of words alone.

And so, Hiruzen simply listened. He did not ask questions Naruto couldn’t answer. He did not express either curiosity or disbelief. He simply paid attention, the most important skill of any Kage.

Naruto’s account ended.

“I'm sorry you had to experience that, Naruto,” Hiruzen said, helplessly aware of how feeble a consolation it was.

“The price paid by a demon host is high,” he went on, “and you never asked to pay it. Now lift up your shirt.”

“What?” Naruto stared at Hiruzen, his sombre mood successfully disrupted by the non-sequitur.

“Lift up your shirt. I need to see the seal.”

Naruto obeyed. Hiruzen placed his hand on the boy's stomach. Immediately, a black pattern rose to the surface, four concentric circles of elaborate intertwined seals around the navel, the outermost slightly paler than the rest.

“He wrought well,” Hiruzen commented. “It's as flawless as the day it was made. The greatest danger—the Demon Fox breaking through of its own will—remains at bay.”

“Good. Now I believe you have some answers for me.”

“Yes,” Hiruzen said wearily, “I suppose I do. Your mother, as it seems you know, was Uzumaki Kushina, a refugee from the Village Hidden in the Whirling Tides. She was also the previous host for the Nine-Brained Demon Fox.”

“And my father?”

Hiruzen braced himself. After exploring every possible pattern for this conversation, this was the part he’d looked forward to least. “Your father... was Namikaze Minato, the Fourth Hokage.”

He looked up, expecting shouting, slamming of hands on tables, or at least a flat “what”. He would even have tolerated a small amount of violence being inflicted upon his person, though it was important for the sake of discipline that some lines remain uncrossed. Instead, Naruto was completely silent.

“My father... was the Fourth Hokage.”

“Yes.”

Naruto started at Hiruzen blankly, as if told to calculate the n-dimensional pathway of the secondary matrix of the Flying Thunder God Technique. His expression suggested that he not only didn’t know how to respond, but could not in fact process the meaning of the words.

“I know this is a great deal to take in, Naruto. Don't try to figure it all out at once,” Hiruzen advised him. He was beginning to update his perspective on Naruto, who was clearly much more intelligent, and much less... uncomplicated than he'd appeared to be. Suddenly, Hiruzen could see Naruto's parents in him in a way he never could before, however hard he'd tried. Minato's razor-edged intelligence, so sharp he had a tendency to cut himself, and Kushina's undeflectable angry passion... Naruto wasn't his parents, but thinking of them helped the old man know how to deal with him.

“I'm going to tell you the story in order. It should answer many of your questions. The rest we can talk about at the end.”

Naruto nodded.

“Your parents met when they were young, not much older than you. Their relationship was... unique, in many ways. Your mother was strong-willed, short-tempered, fiery. She told me once, much later on, that keeping that unfaltering fire burning inside her was what helped her cope with the strain of containing the Demon Fox—if her thoughts and feelings were rapid, intense, moving in straight lines, it was that much more difficult for them to be influenced or corrupted. You have to understand, her seal was very different from yours. She only had limited protection from the Demon Fox's corrosive influence.”

Naruto opened his mouth, but restrained himself from interrupting.

A mischievous thought crossed Hiruzen’s mind as he looked at the boy who so enjoyed manipulating people’s emotions.

“As for your father... have you ever heard the term 'yamato nadeshiko'?”

“What.”

That was more like it. _Some_ part of this conversation had to go according to Hiruzen’s expectations.

“You're telling me the Fourth Hokage, my father, was the epitome of traditional feminine beauty,” Naruto stated in the same flat, disbelieving voice.

“In a manner of speaking,” Hiruzen smiled. “If Kushina was like fire, then he was like flowing water. He was soft, gentle, quick to laugh or to forgive, patient and slow to anger. He always looked out for others, and had a deep sense of responsibility. And at the same time, he had an inner core of steel, a courage and strength that allowed him to fight for the village and ultimately become its greatest protector.”

Naruto looked dazed. Somewhere inside his head, he was likely attempting to reconcile the image of his mystery father, doubtless built up to impossible idealised heights in his imagination, and of the Fourth Hokage, a mighty warrior whose position at those heights was fully earned, with that of the kimono-wearing perfect housewife, delicate yet dauntless. Naruto opened his mouth several times, but no words emerged.

Perhaps, Hiruzen reflected, there was something to this pranking business after all.

“Their relationship was complicated,” he continued. “They were friends, rivals, enemies and just about everything else before they became lovers. Always, though, they seemed to complete each other in a way no one else could, water to keep the flames from roaring out of control, and fire to light the way through mist and fog.”

Hiruzen watched Naruto’s face and adjusted his choice of words as he went. The knowledge would fill a place inside the boy that had been empty far too long, and it made Hiruzen strangely proud to be the one to give that gift (for all that he had been part of the conspiracy to withhold it). Yet at the same time, what would it be like to finally learn what you’d been missing, to reach out for this beautiful jewel hanging before you, only to remember that you were twelve years too late?

Hiruzen could not heal that wound, only tear it open wider. He could not give Naruto back the family he’d lost. Even his best attempt had been vanquished by the unpredictability of human nature. All he could offer was the truth, painful and useless but, in its own way, holy.

“However,” he said, “there is a fundamental law that binds female demon hosts specifically. The first time a host gives birth to a child, the process temporarily weakens the seal. This is an incomparably perfect time for any enemy of the village to strike, attempting to steal or at least release the Demon Beast. Thus, every precaution is taken to keep the childbirth secret. Even the relationship itself is usually concealed until the first child is born and the danger is past. If no one has any reason to expect a pregnancy, it is that much easier to conceal it. Kushina knew this, and kept her relationship with Minato away from the public eye.

“Unfortunately, it would seem that in this case it wasn't enough. We still do not know what happened, because of course those who could tell us did not survive, but something or someone struck at the moment of childbirth and unleashed the Demon Fox on Leaf.”

Naruto's eyes widened.

Yes, the reaction was obvious. Inevitable. How would any strong-willed child react on hearing that his parents had effectively been murdered, and that the killer was still at large? What kind of seeds was Hiruzen sowing?

“The destruction was unimaginable,” he continued. “The old village was wiped off the map. Countless people died. The Leaf you know is the result of rebuilding, slowly and painstakingly, to take advantage of the natural concealment and defence offered by the crater the Demon Fox's attack left behind. And your parents were the only reason its onslaught stopped at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even before the Night of Tragedy, Minato had been conducting sealcrafting research in order to develop a superior seal to contain the Demon Fox. He was a prodigy, and the latest in a line of great shinobi to attempt the task.

“The work was tremendously important, because a human being is not inherently capable of fighting a free Demon Beast. Their intelligence is simply on a different level, capable of performing what we would consider miracles of prediction and calculation. Our only salvation is that it is also somewhat alien in nature—they are not creative the way we would expect a human of such genius to be creative, and just as they can accomplish feats far beyond human comprehension, there are times when they appear to make mistakes a human in their position would not.

“Unfortunately, when the Fourth Hokage faced the Demon Fox, his work was not yet complete. Nor could he seal it away as the First Hokage had done before him, through the power of a Bloodline Limit. Instead, he was forced to resort to one of the most advanced forbidden techniques, the Moment of Clarity.”

Hiruzen paused to refill his pipe. The tobacco was unusually bitter tonight.

“The Moment of Clarity temporarily unlocks a human being's complete mental potential, enough to enable them to function on the same level as one of the Demon Beasts. We believe that he used it to instantly complete his research, and apply it to seal the Demon Fox into you. We call his work the Perfect Seal, and after twelve years we still barely understand what it is he did.”

“What happened then?”

“He perished,” Hiruzen told him. “The human body cannot operate at that level of function for more than a few seconds—that is why it's a forbidden technique. I'm afraid we still don't know exactly what happened to your mother—we speculate that her sacrifice was part of the power source that allowed him to create the Perfect Seal in the first place.”

Naruto’s eyes were glistening. Hiruzen, whose memories of his own children were mostly limited to Academy events and carefully-scheduled dinners, wasn’t certain what to do. Was Naruto a shinobi, whose pride would be badly wounded if he cried in front of his superior officer? Or was he a child, in need of catharsis followed by consolation?

“Why me?” Naruto asked the obvious question in a slightly choked but clear voice.

“I don't know,” Hiruzen admitted. “Only they could tell you that. But it isn't difficult to understand. Minato was about to die. Kushina could not accept a new seal on top of her recently broken one. You were their son, and they believed that you could accept that power and wield it for the greater good. Perhaps they even thought it would protect you.”

“Protect me?” Naruto echoed incredulously.

Hiruzen looked down in shame, and his eyes fell on the seal of approval standing on his desk. A piece of the Hokage’s sacred regalia, with the power to save lives or destroy them merely by touching paper—a power which the people of Leaf could collectively withdraw at any time, even if most of them didn’t realise it.

Minato and Kushina hadn't known that he would fail them the way he did. They could not have anticipated the scale of the power shift. With his protégé gone and his credibility as protector of the village at an all-time low, the Third Hokage had been all but powerless before his rivals in the aftermath of the Night of Tragedy.

“I know. It did the exact opposite. And you are correct—I am to blame for that. Others insisted that we needed to keep your identity secret to prevent enemies of the village from coming after you while you were young and defenceless. I told them that it was better for you to be known as the child of heroes, to have the loyalty and support of everyone in the village, but they argued...”

He stopped. He could see fate branching out in two different directions before him, depending on whether he told the full truth or the partial truth. The partial truth would probably have been better, for Naruto and for the world... but the old man couldn't do it. He'd had twelve years of concealing the truth, trying to soften it, even for himself. The chance to finally let go, to confess and accept judgment, was too much for him to resist.

“...they argued that an isolated, broken child would make for a better tool, easier to control when the time finally came.”

And that was it. The argument Hiruzen hadn't fought against hard enough, the betrayal of all his beliefs that he had allowed to happen because... because he hadn't had the influence to challenge his opponents directly? Because he'd been staggered by the loss of so much that he had loved, and could not bear to endanger what was left by provoking a major conflict while the village was so vulnerable? Because his liberal, humanist teachings had failed to protect the village in its hour of need, and he could no longer trust that his way was right? They were excuses, one and all, and he had spent twelve years asking himself whether he'd just been a coward, afraid to risk everything simply to do what was right.

He came out of his thoughts to realise that Naruto was still silent. Eerily silent. Silent as if time itself had stopped, frozen and ready to shatter. Silent to the point where Hiruzen felt the need to fill the silence no matter what.

“But they were wrong about you. You were Minato and Kushina's son, and I watched you defy your destiny, over and over again. I know it may not seem like much, but I did what I could to help you. I kept you independent, and out of the hands of those who would shape your upbringing as they did with many of the orphans of that night. I saw the proof of your unbreakable spirit in your pranks, and shielded you from the worst of the consequences. I had you protected from danger as best I could when others demanded that you be taught to sink or swim—”

“Who are they?” Naruto interrupted in an ice-cold voice. “Who made those decisions about me?”

Hiruzen shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. Even if such information were not deeply confidential... you have to understand, Naruto. There are some enemies you cannot fight. Enemies you shouldn't even _have_ to fight. You are twelve years old.”

Naruto's eyes flared. Hiruzen instantly knew he'd said the wrong thing.

“Am I too young to have feelings? Too young to be hurt? Too young to seek revenge?”

“Yes!” Hiruzen snapped.

Naruto shrank back as if finally realising that he was talking to one of the most powerful shinobi in the world.

“Listen, Naruto,” Hiruzen said, his voice stern. “I have seen many fine shinobi ruined by the path of vengeance. It is a vice greater and more dangerous than alcohol, or money, or lust. It will throw you against enemies too powerful for you to fight, and force you to sacrifice everything you hold dear for the tiniest chance at victory. And even if you do emerge victorious, all you will be left with is the taste of ashes. I am not saying this to you as an authority figure preaching morality. I am saying it as an old man who has seen countless mistakes, and made countless mistakes, and knows what it looks like when somebody is about to make a truly terrible one.”

Naruto didn't say anything for some time.

“You understand that I can't just let this go, don't you?” he finally asked. “I can't know that everything I've been through in my life is the result of someone's deliberate decision, and just forgive those people or forget they exist. Even if my own vengeance didn't matter, the kind of people who would break a child to turn them into a better tool aren’t people I can allow to live in the same world as me.”

Hiruzen sighed once more. “I understand. And this side, the side that does not break children, is not so overflowing with champions that it can afford to turn one away. But it is not time yet. No matter whether you seek justice or vengeance, you are not ready yet to fight these battles without losing either your life or your humanity. Please believe me as one who has seen too much loss of both.”

“...I understand.”

Hiruzen doubted it. But understanding came with maturity, and he had a feeling this boy would mature fast. Right now, he was prepared to make do with acceptance.

“Just one more thing,” Naruto added. “What about Raijin? Did he really die on a secret mission, or did he 'die on a secret mission' like my parents did?”

Hiruzen felt the question stab him. Out of all the mysteries that did not need revealing...

“I’m sorry,” he said with deliberate evenness. “I can’t answer that question.”

“What? Why not?”

“Or that one.” This was a piece of shinobi common sense Naruto would learn soon enough. When a piece of information was beyond your clearance, often the reason why was also beyond your clearance. It was maddening, but a necessary evil in the quest for watertight security.

“I know it's frustrating, Naruto,” Hiruzen said apologetically, “and I know you deserve better, but I really have told you everything I can for now.” And he was already beginning to question whether he had just doomed Leaf Village or even the world by giving the volatile pre-teen wielder of the world's single greatest destructive force information that could only make him more volatile still.

“I think I've heard enough,” Naruto told Hiruzen in a voice that held far too little emotion. “I need to go.”

As Naruto stood up and opened the door, Hiruzen spoke to him one last time.

“Naruto... I'm sorry.”

Naruto nodded, softly and without compassion. “I know.”


	11. Chapter 11

More than one member of Team Seven slept badly that night. When he got home, Kakashi should have been out like a light after the long journey, but his troubled mind insisted on getting in the way.

For so long, his life had been a thing of colourless simplicity. His missions, executed quietly and efficiently. His training, systematic and pre-planned for months in advance. His rest, comfortably filled with intellectually stimulating non-fiction. It felt like it would go on forever.

In retrospect, the cracks had been there all along, even if he’d refused to acknowledge their significance. Why had he, who had successfully maintained cordial but distant relationships with dozens of colleagues, allowed Gai to make a Dynamic Entry through his barriers and become an “eternal rival” who could be defeated but never dismissed? Why had he, whose own attempts at a love life were long dead and in no need of resurrection, become addicted to Jiraiya-sensei’s novels, cheering on Mikoto’s doomed love for Fushimi, hating but also pitying the dastardly Magistrate Urahara, and willing Kenji to realise that the Terrible Trio were prepared to work through their differences and become a harem if he would only start acting like a man?

Above all, why had he, who had only ever led standard chūnin teams that already knew what they were doing, or elite strike forces that merely needed a reliable point man, signed up to become a jōnin instructor?

It had been the Hokage’s idea, like many things that sounded unreasonable but inexplicably worked out for the best. But it hadn’t been an order. Kakashi could have refused.

Instead, he’d agreed, only to reject team after team for lacking a skill that he himself had never mastered. A skill that could have changed everything if he’d only learned it in time, and that they would need in order not to repeat his mistakes.

And then Team Seven.

They were too loud. They fought all the time. They refused to take “no” for an answer, and interpreted “yes” as “do whatever you like”. And they were the best genin team he’d seen in years.

They understood teamwork. They understood loyalty. They were self-reliant yet respectful of authority (at least when it counted). And for all their lack of experience, they were both disciplined and creative in their approach to new challenges, a combination far too rare even among skilled shinobi.

Team Seven had made his life start to gain colour whether he wanted it or not. It was lucky that Kakashi was a genius capable of devouring teaching guides like rice crackers, because in return he had to accomplish a miracle—to find a way to transform an apathetic lone wolf like him into somebody else’s Minato-sensei.

So far, he was failing.

The mission had started out perfectly. He had arranged for the team’s first challenging battle, and their first kill, to take place in a highly-controlled environment. It had given them a hint of both their potential and the limits of their strength, and had forced them to confront the bloody truth of the battlefield.

But then came the fateful decision. Kakashi had chosen to press on with the mission instead of putting it on hold until reinforcements could arrive. He'd put the mission ahead of the welfare of his subordinates, and the very next day, they nearly paid for it with their lives.

No matter how great a genin team they were, he’d thrown them into danger before they were ready, and simultaneously fallen for Zabuza's stratagem hook, line and sinker. He should have known then to turn back, to accept the loss of face from changing his mind and disrupting Tazuna's schedule. Instead, in his arrogance he had pressed on, forgetting that this was about more than his personal skills.

And then there was the training. He should have focused on drawing out Sasuke's combat potential, attempted to awaken his Sharingan and taught him its basic applications. He should have taken advantage of Sakura’s superior chakra control, teaching her simple techniques to help her keep the client (and herself) out of harm's way. Instead... tree walking. In what possible world was tree walking a good idea against _that_ opponent on _that_ terrain?

No, in retrospect he knew why he'd done it. It had nothing to do with tree walking being vital preparation for more advanced training. First and foremost, tree walking enhanced mobility. On its own, what it boosted most was evasion and escape. He'd been ready to send his team into deadly danger, but not ready to trust them to fight. On some level, he'd hoped they would focus on staying alive, maybe even flee the battle, just so he wouldn't have to bury them as he had buried other teams before them.

They had survived despite his failures, but even now there was so much that could still go wrong. The flame burning inside Sasuke threatened to consume him if fanned in the wrong direction. Sakura was strolling blithely into a world that chewed up the unprepared like a meat grinder. And Naruto reminded him of his younger self, gifted, brilliant, and utterly unable to see beyond himself to the true consequences of his actions. Kakashi still didn’t know whether his intervention with Naruto had been a good idea—it may have ultimately saved the day, but it had also nearly ended up unleashing the most powerful destructive entity known to man. None of this had been in the teaching guides.

Kakashi’s sleep, when it finally arrived, was neither deep nor lasting. After a few hours, he was awakened by a quiet noise, so faint he might almost have thought he'd dreamed it.

_Slide. Step. Strike. Spin. Choke. Strike. Duck. Kick. Rise. Lean. Strike. Grab. Twist. Draw._

A second later, Kakashi finished waking up to find three shinobi lying unconscious on the floor, and a fourth struggling with his right arm behind his back and a kunai at his throat. That seemed about right.

Kakashi fixed the remaining, fifth, intruder with a cool gaze.

“How can I help you, gentlemen?”

The other man was unfazed. He took in the state of his subordinates with a quick glance, reached slowly into a vest pocket, and presented a scroll with an official-looking seal at the bottom.

“Hatake Kakashi, you are hereby under arrest on suspicion of treason against the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Your trial begins in an hour.”

-o-

Naruto's mood had not improved by the time he woke up. He could feel something ending, some faint wisp of childhood he hadn't even realised was there. In a way, he should have known this would be the case. The ninja world wasn't like the civilian one, where you turned over the right calendar leaf and magically became ready for adult life. Here, the rights and responsibilities of adulthood were aligned with those of being a ninja: as a genin, he was expected to sacrifice his life for the village at a moment's notice, and accordingly had the right to live that life as he saw fit. There were restrictions, of course, given the young age of most genin. Some rights were reserved for their parents or guardians, and Naruto would not attain them until he reached chūnin rank or the age of sixteen (whichever came first).

Then again, with the Hokage's hands-off approach to guardianship, Naruto had already been making his own decisions on most day-to-day matters, and it wasn’t like he was planning to get married or open a sealcrafting workshop anytime soon. As such, he hadn't felt the seismic shift of growing up when he graduated, and hadn't realised that his life was changing forever. Now, at last, that feeling was catching up to him. In the space of one mission, he'd experienced first love, fought to the death, and had to make major decisions about his place in the world. Then, in its aftermath, he'd discovered that he was caught up in a web of secrets and dangers that most adults wouldn’t have to deal with in their entire lives. Who would he become if he kept going like this? Was he expected to give up being playful, flippant and carefree (or at least as carefree as Naruto got)? What did it mean to grow up, to adapt, and which parts of it was he allowed to choose?

What if some parts were inescapable? Kakashi-sensei seemed like he had to make an effort to stay on the same wavelength as everybody else. Gai-sensei didn’t even bother trying. Naruto got the sense from Hinata’s stories that Kurenai-sensei couldn’t decide whether she was being Team Mum or running an interesting social experiment, while Chōji said Asuma-sensei was impossibly chill for somebody who only smoked tobacco.

Naruto would one day be a jōnin too, as a prerequisite to becoming Hokage. Was he also going to get progressively more unhinged as he gained experience? He had an inkling, now, of how the mechanism worked, and wondered how many recurring nightmares one accumulated over a lifetime of killing people and watching one’s friends die.

He already knew his own would be worse.

-o-

Nobody was touching him. That was what didn't feel right.

He was in the middle of a crowd. Where was the jostling? Where were the people trying to accidentally knock him over? Did he suddenly not exist anymore?

Worse, where were the muttered curses? Even those who were too scared or disgusted to touch the monster could still hurt him with words. It didn't hurt much—not after all this time—but each one was another tiny grain of salt into a wound that didn't close.

Aggression was natural. Its absence left a void.

That void was what terrified him, more and more with every second. Silence so complete he could only hear his rapid heartbeat. Stillness so complete he couldn't feel the passage of time. He wanted to do something, anything, to make the world more real, but he couldn't move.

The crowd wasn't moving either. If the world was empty, then what were they doing here? Why were they surrounding him? Was he the reason they were here?

But if they weren't here to hurt him... If they weren't here to interact...

What if they were here to watch him, and had been all along?

The heads turned. All of them at once. All to look straight at him. They'd heard the thought.

Every single one. Watching. Their eyes the only points of colour in the world. Watching. Watching him without mercy.

And he still couldn't move.

-o-

Naruto had woken up with a scream.

Even after turning on the light, it had taken him minutes of grounding himself in his tiny flat, minutes of proving to himself that he was real, and alone, and as safe as somebody like him could ever be.

This was what the Hokage could never understand, and Naruto could never fully explain. The true nature of the Demon Fox: the unbearable horror of being _seen_ , and the equal and opposite horror of being compelled to see the Fox in return.

That single moment of realisation, frozen and extended across all time, was the background feel of facing the Demon Fox. The helpless terror of the vivisection table. The desperate prayer to go unnoticed by a being so vast that it would crush you simply because that was easier than the alternative. All incoherent, like trying to describe the experience of an explosion by talking about crater sizes and casualty rates. Forced circumlocution for a thing that words could not touch directly. The Fox was still inside him, even now. Was that just a nightmare, or had its eyes followed him back from their prison? Could it see him right now? Could it hear him the way it heard him when he'd spoken to it inside his mind?

Enough. He had to think about something else. Now.

His parents. He finally knew his parents, and they were every bit as legendary and heroic as he could have hoped. And a lot more dead. He knew his classics, and was thus aware that there were a dozen reasons for a ninja to fake their death, only to reappear in the village’s hour of need with upgraded powers and a badass new outfit. He knew those reasons, and those stories, off by heart. But nobody came back from sacrificial ninjutsu—techniques that were lethal _by design_ because nothing less would get the job done.

And so now, when he’d finally come close enough to touch his parents’ shadows, they disappeared forever. It wasn't fair, hearing about their deaths from the Hokage like it was something in a history book, long ago and far away. Gone, filed away, too late to be undone, for further information please see the index. Why couldn't he have known them, or at least had memories of them, something that would make the world in which they’d been alive a real place?

The villagers had known them. What would they say if they found out they’d been tormenting the son of one of their greatest heroes? Would they be consumed with regret? Would they beg for forgiveness? Would they start atoning for their sins?

But Naruto’s fantasies of revenge popped like soap bubbles when he tried to actually project the most likely scenario. Would the villagers really admit they'd been wrong all along, and face up to the consequences of their actions? Or would they just spin the discovery to reinforce their existing beliefs? How much easier would it be to proclaim that he was an obvious disappointment to his parents, who would surely be ashamed if they could see how their son had grown up et cetera et cetera? Naruto had no illusions that the villagers had originally decided to hate him based on some sort of rational evidence that could be challenged and disproved.

Besides, there was a reason why the villagers didn’t know. Much though he hated to agree with his mysterious nemeses about anything, if Naruto could work out that he was Kyubey's host, so could others, and every extra detail made him easier for outsiders to identify. If he was going to reveal the truth, and one day he certainly was, it would have to be after he became strong enough to fend off the Zabuza-level foes that would eventually come after him.

Not to mention whoever had unleashed the Demon Fox in the first place. The Hokage didn’t know who was responsible, which suggested that the culprit—someone powerful enough to penetrate village security at a time of high alert, face off against the Fourth Hokage and break a state-of-the-art demon seal—was still alive and out there and likely interested in finishing the job.

Naruto didn’t have enough pieces of the puzzle. What was it they were all after? His Leaf-based nemeses had wanted to use him as a tool, but Naruto's experience with the Demon Fox had shown it to be far too dangerous to treat as a deployable weapon of mass destruction. It was an intelligent being, and clearly one with a taste for violence. That meant it was fully capable of seeking revenge on its former captors, or indeed pursuing its own plans, which were unlikely to be for anyone's good. It wasn't worth keeping something like that around if the only way to make use of it was to let it loose and risk either of those things happening. It would be smarter to simply kill Naruto, or keep him in some kind of hidden underground vault his whole life until the time came to transfer the Fox to his successor.

That meant there had to be something else, some benefit to being the host of which he was as yet unaware, and which might just tip the balance of power in his favour. Some way to make use of the Demon Fox’s incomparable strength without destroying himself in the process. His parents must have known what it was. And they must have known it was crazy to entrust something like that to a child they had barely met, a child who for all they knew might one day turn it against the village. They must have known it made no sense to have absolute faith in Naruto just because he was their son. And yet.

It was a new sense of connection to his parents, a bond of trust linking them across time, with a depth to it that he had never experienced in the real world. It filled him with a strange mix of emotions, from sorrow to happiness, from awe to disbelief. It brought its own sense of fulfilment even as it made him hunger for more. He would have to patch things up with the Hokage, if only so he could question him about every last detail of their lives.

Feeling a bit better, Naruto roused himself from his contemplative state. Things were changing, after all, and one of those changes was the fact that his wallet was presently full of more money than he had ever seen in one place before. In other words, it was time to go shopping.

-o-

The chief of the (civilian) Leaf police service stared gloomily at the reports mounting into an ever taller pile on his desk as he waited for his latest intern to bring him a much-needed mug of coffee.

At 9:45 am, a hulking purple-skinned ogre, wearing a tiger-skin loincloth and brandishing a five-foot iron club, had barged into the foyer of Scroll Off, Leaf's premier bookshop, and demanded directions to the manga section from a terrified clerk. It returned to the counter ten minutes later, its body language much changed, and very quietly handed over the money for the two most recent volumes of _Princess Maker Gaiden_ , five volumes of _Thorns and Petals: Rosamund's Heart-Pounding Adventure_ and the entire backlog of the critically-acclaimed _Magical Girl Glitter Honey_.

At 11 am, the chief's intern informed him of a new rumour spreading like wildfire: apparently, Tora, the Fire Daimyo’s wife's cat with a tendency to take refuge from its owner on Leaf territory, had been cursed to turn into a dog when covered in water at precisely four degrees Celsius. To date, Tora had been drenched with at least seven buckets of cold water by curious townsfolk, but to no effect. Trade in thermoses and thermometers was booming.

At 11:30 am, a report came in of a mass nosebleed-induced fainting incident among the staff of LUSCO Supermarket. Allegedly, a group of completely naked young women, their modesty preserved only by mysterious clouds of mist, had marched in, entirely unembarrassed, and purchased a variety of cooking implements, as well as industrial quantities of ramen ingredients. When questioned on their way out, they explained that they were preparing a dark ritual to summon their master, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, from the void beyond time and space for purposes best left unspecified.

By that point, the chief had no choice but to accept that the worst had come to pass. Uzumaki Naruto was back in town.

-o-

Naruto strolled cheerfully through the streets, catching up on his shopping needs while a separate corner of his mind gleefully noted the visible consequences of his opening salvo and made notes for future improvements. He’d found himself getting a lot better at semi-conscious multi-tasking, possibly as a side-effect of all that shadow clone use. He also faintly registered the Hokage passing him by at one point, unusually out of his characteristic white robes and ridiculous hat, but the latter completely blanked him. Naruto wasn't sure how he felt about that, but just as he was beginning to ponder the implications, he was distracted by the sight of Kiba and Shino walking down the street.

They were the first people he knew that he'd seen since he got back, the Hokage and a bunch of scowling shopkeepers notwithstanding, and the sight shocked him out of his reverie. This was it, his chance to establish a new pattern of behaviour that didn't completely conceal his intelligence, yet also didn't freak people out and make them run away. He wished he'd spent more time planning, maybe running through the various paths such a conversation could take and considering appropriate responses, like he had with his confrontation with the Hokage. Still, he had to start somewhere, and an ordinary casual encounter with a couple of fellow genin seemed like just the thing.

“Hi, guys! I'm back!” Naruto waved.

The response was not what he expected.

Shino and Kiba's heads turned to Naruto in eerie unison. They stared at him as, in one perfectly-coordinated voice, they intoned, “We are members of Team Kurenai. You hurt our teammate. Prepare to die.”

Naruto froze as they started to advance towards him. He had not anticipated his fellow ninja being mysteriously replaced by evil zombie clones, at least not without better dramatic buildup. While he reckoned he could take Kiba in combat without much difficulty, and Akamaru could be dealt with one way or another, he simply didn't know enough about Shino's capabilities or fighting style to take the risk of fighting him in a three-on-one match-up. Naruto had read about the effects of rare toxins, and did not need telling that there were few things more terrifying than an opponent with a precise, long-range, potentially silent and invisible chemical delivery system.

As such, he didn't waste any time. “I don't know what you're talking about! I never did anything to her! I haven't even been here!”

“Hinata's been moping ever since the day you left,” Kiba said. “She's barely said a word in the past two months, and we know it's your fault!”

“Why?” Shino elaborated. “Because her demeanour changed completely after she read your note.”

Naruto could feel a heavy sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. What could he have done that was horrible enough to make Hinata upset for two solid months? His imagination, ever helpful, conjured images of a sad Hinata lying curled up on top of her bed, looking very small and helpless in the middle of the enormous four-poster monstrosity (which Naruto assumed every Hyūga had in their bedroom); Hinata trying to write in her diary, only for the ink to be blurred by her falling tears; Hinata at dinner, unable to muster an appetite, and brushing away the concerned questions of her household (who would doubtless be swearing Blood Oaths of Vengeance against whatever transgressor had so hurt her)...

Naruto flinched away from the visions, and forced himself to consider the much more tractable question of what he could possibly have done wrong. As far as he could remember, his note to Hinata had been completely innocent. What had he written again?

-o-

_Dear Hinata,_

_Sorry, but I’m going to have to cancel our dinner together. Don't take it the wrong way—it's not you, it's me._

_I’ve signed up for a new mission, and I won’t be back for some time. I know we’ll have to put our training on hold, but look at it as an opportunity—you can start seeing other people, and it’ll give me some space so I can figure out where to go from here._

_Naruto_

-o-

Either way, there was only one thing for it.

“If she's upset, I should talk to her,” Naruto told Kiba and Shino. “Where is she?”

“Nuh-uh,” Kiba shook his head. “You've done enough damage. You're going to stay here and take your punishment for not listening to our warning.”

He rolled up his sleeves demonstratively. Akamaru growled. Shino didn't move, but the light happened to catch his sunglasses, making them glint in a particularly sinister fashion. Was that a faint buzzing sound, just on the edge of hearing?

“Wait! I'm prepared to negotiate!” Naruto shouted.

Seeing that he'd at least momentarily put them off balance, he pressed on. “Kiba, I know a shop which is selling _Pagoda of the Dead 3_ , the one they nearly banned for graphic content, without asking for ID. I'll tell you where it is if you let me go see Hinata.”

Some of the tension faded from Kiba's body language, and he lowered his fists a little. Akamaru looked up at him in puzzlement.

Shino gave his teammate a reproachful look. “Don't give in, Kiba. This is a test of the loyalty of the pack, of the unity of the hive. You cannot abandon your own for the sake of such trifles and still call yourself a shinobi.”

“Damn straight!” Kiba agreed, his resolve restored. “You know, every once in a while, you actually say some good stuff. Now let's get on with the beating.”

“You know that girl who helps out at the flower shop down the road from the Academy?” Naruto quickly asked Shino before the group's anger could regain its momentum. “I can tell you where and on which days she has lunch on her own, plus three of her favourite topics of conversation.”

“Hinata is at the Namikaze Memorial Library,” Shino said without a moment’s hesitation. “If you hurry, you should be able to get there before it closes.”

Naruto created a shadow clone to hold up his end of the bargain, then grinned and ran off. When he'd asked Iruka-sensei in his circumlocutory fashion why information warfare wasn't taught at the Academy, he'd been told that it was too difficult a concept for mere genin-in-training. In reality, he suspected, it was because it was such a powerful tool, and one so easily turned upon even the mightiest Academy instructor.

-o-

The Namikaze Memorial Library was a tall, elegant building of white stone founded during the second wave of reconstruction after the Night of Tragedy, once housing and basic infrastructure had been re-established and there was a need for Leaf to prove both to itself and to the outside world that it had not ceased to exist as a major shinobi power. A lot of favours had been called in, and a lot of uneven trades made, and the most obvious consequence was some very impressive civic architecture for a settlement coming back from the edge of annihilation.

Its existence made much more sense thanks to Naruto’s new information. He'd already known that the village had extremely thorough evacuation plans (as a genin, he was obliged to memorise levels 1 to 3, while chūnin were drilled in the full set). If the Hokage and his most trusted staff had known in advance that the Demon Fox might break free that night, he could see how they’d managed to save so many people from an event that had literally wiped away the physical structure of the village. Leaf's revival may have seemed like a miracle to the outside world, but the whole thing was a product of sound planning, between the evacuation that had left countless people alive but without a trade, the First Hokage's decision to found the original village in a vast forest that provided endless construction materials, and a long-term investment policy that defied the commonplace wisdom of never forging deep financial bonds with potential future enemies.

The Namikaze Memorial Library (the very name made Naruto's heart skip a beat) was a tribute to the Fourth Hokage in more than just its name. Its specialisation was higher education—the fact that ninja were forced to finish their formal education at the age of twelve, and thereafter had to focus on mission-related specialisations, had been an endless source of frustration for the Fourth, who in another life would happily have been a scientific polymath. The Third had thus decided that the library would stock titles suited to self-study in a variety of topics, both civilian and shinobi, from agriculture and Bloodline Limits to Yin/Yang elemental theory and zoology, with a tiered access structure preventing ordinary villagers from being exposed to things they were better off not knowing.

Naruto's own attitude to self-study had always been decidedly mixed. On the one hand, he knew well what it was like to hunger for information, especially when others were all too happy to deny it to him. There was pleasure in satisfying his curiosity, and in adding more pieces to the enormous jigsaw puzzle that was his understanding of the world around him. On the other hand, every new piece of knowledge only set him further apart from other people. What he knew could not become a topic of conversation, could never even be mentioned in front of them. The more he learned, the further away he moved from his peers, in intellectual advancement but also in isolation. There was a whole new kind of loneliness in having a head filled with ideas that could never be shared.

That was due to change, though. He had an objective now, one which called for him to take full advantage of his strengths. If learning was one of his strengths, which it most definitely was, then he would have to leverage it as much as he could, and find a way to bring his conflicting desires into balance. He had no idea exactly how that could work right now, but he remembered his conversations with Haku, and however distant the prize, he now knew it was worth fighting for.

Unfortunately, even if he could do that, in the case of the Namikaze Memorial Library one significant obstacle remained. Head Librarian Ishihara "Old Stoneface" Kaori was a woman who hero-worshipped the Fourth, perhaps more so than anyone else in the village, and her hatred for the monster that killed him was as intense as it got. Even after Naruto became a genin and Ishihara could no longer keep him banned from the premises as a “disruptive element” without consequences, she'd managed to keep the boy from using any of the institution's resources with a variety of tricks refined over decades of library management. At the moment, as far as Naruto could tell, the odds of his membership application form ever getting processed were roughly equal to the odds of Sasuke spontaneously growing wings and flying away.

At any rate, Shino had not led him astray. Hinata was indeed inside, leafing through a large black book with improbable speed, her expression of concentration at once fierce and oddly adorable. Naruto was put in mind of a small, fluffy kitten trying to intimidate an intruder into leaving its territory.

“N-Naruto! You're back!” She looked up and gave him a somewhat dazed stare as he approached. Her Byakugan deactivated.

“Um... yeah. Got back last night. Hey, listen, I just talked to Kiba and—”

A heavy seal (of the book-stamping variety, not the space-time-warping variety) zoomed right past Naruto's ear.

“Silence in the library!” an enraged librarian admonished in a loud voice, likely disrupting far more people's reading than the original conversation had.

“Sorry...” Hinata whispered, even though Naruto was technically the one being rebuked.

“Let's go outside,” Naruto suggested.

Hinata duly put the book away and followed him out.

Once out of range of the librarian's vengeance, he spoke up again. “I'm really sorry.”

Hinata looked at him blankly. “You... are?”

“Yes. I'm not exactly sure what it is I did,” Naruto told her, “but I'm sorry anyway.”

“Um.” Hinata stared at him silently, slowly tensing as if some kind of courage meter was gradually ticking upwards. Naruto waited politely until it passed the critical point that allowed self-expression.

“Naruto... what exactly did you mean by your note?”

“What do you mean?” Naruto asked. “I meant exactly what I said. An urgent mission came up and I had to leave straight away, so we’d have to reschedule that thank-you dinner. But I didn’t want you to take it the wrong way, so I pointed out that it would be a nice change of pace for you to try sparring with other people, and I could use the time to come up with training ideas for when I got back.”

“Oh.” For a second, Hinata virtually sagged with relief, as if some huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Then her face tightened as if said weight had been put back down squarely on her foot, and was expected to remain there until further notice. By this point, Naruto was intimately familiar with Hinata’s “I’m beating myself up because I am an idiot” mode, and could identify it from eye movements alone.

“Why, what did you think I meant?” Naruto asked with more than a little bemusement. “I bumped into Kiba and Shino, and they said you've been upset ever since you read it.”

Hinata squirmed, as if suppressing an impulse to get away. “I thought it meant... something else. Or I did at first, anyway.”

“Did you change your mind?” Naruto asked, noting the non-answer but also knowing that trying to pressure Hinata never led anywhere good, and in fact was pretty much the most counter-productive thing one could do with her. If pushed, she would retreat into herself and grow increasingly upset and non-responsive. If pushed further, she would flee. The one thing she did not do—and, in an odd way, Naruto respected her for this—was give in to the pressure and change her mind on the issue in question.

“Well…” Hinata said awkwardly. “At first, I think I was just in shock, and I didn’t feel anything. But that wore off, and after I was done... reacting, I started thinking. I… it’s not that I know that part of you at all, but it seemed to me like you were acting out of character. You’re brave, and you always face challenges with everything you have, and you never run away from a problem. And you communicate. It’s what you do. It’s what you’ve been doing with me all along. So maybe, just maybe… I was making a faulty assumption.

“Between my own reading and what you’ve taught me, I know assumptions are deadly. People jump to the wrong conclusions about each other, and the girl runs away and gets herself kidnapped when the boy’s only trying to protect her, or he thinks she’s died and then he kills himself and then _she_ kills herself, or she tries to kill him for turning evil when it’s really part of a secret plan to bring about world peace…”

Cold hell, just what did she think he'd written?

“I couldn’t let it end like that. And then I remembered that the entire reason I was able to talk to you, the reason you took an interest in me, was so I could learn to think like you. I asked myself, ‘What would Naruto do?’”

Wow. That was flattering on an unprecedented level. Naruto had been used as an example of good behaviour at the Academy before, but that tended to be in the format of “Do the exact opposite of what Naruto does, boys and girls, and you're sure to grow up to become fine ninja”. (Of course, it didn't take him long to figure out how to game that particular system, and all use of Naruto as an example stopped immediately after the Chewing Gum Incident.) Upon hearing Hinata's words, he could feel his face starting to grow hot in spite of his best efforts.

“I started with the reading list you'd given me. I went through every last page, but none of them could tell me what to do.”

“Hold on,” Naruto interrupted. “The entire reading list? In two months?”

Hinata shook her head. “Much less than that. I suppose you wouldn't know—Byakugan users have accelerated reading techniques, since we can see the full spread of a scroll, or a double-page spread of a book, all in one go. Besides, I was… motivated. So when I was done, I had enough time to go through the books _you’d_ been reading, and see if that would help.”

“How did you know what I'd been reading?”

“I infiltrated the offices of the libraries I know you go to, and examined their records,” Hinata told him in much the same tone of voice as she used to discuss the weather. “And not in your books, but in the bibliography of one of them, there was a book with a chapter which had what I needed.

“I still don’t understand it all. It said there was nothing inherently wrong with not knowing the answer to a question, and that doesn’t make any kind of sense. But I did understand when it said that if you didn’t know, you have to admit it before you can take another step towards the truth. And so… um…”

Hinata looked down, studying the ground as if the arrangement of the grass stalks at her feet held the final secrets of rationality.

Naruto waited patiently for a few seconds, but finally couldn't restrain himself. “What happened?”

“I admitted it,” Hinata said quietly, as if telling him about how she’d confessed some terrible crime. “I admitted that I’d been driving myself into—into being unhappy based on things that only existed in my head. You must think it's so silly. All I had to do was wait and ask.” There was a slight wry, self-mocking expression on Hinata's face which Naruto didn't remember ever seeing there before.

Naruto considered what he'd been told. Then he considered it some more. It did not seem to fit anything in his understanding of how human behaviour worked.

“So let me get this straight,” he said, slowly and carefully. “You started thinking bad things about me. Then you realised that your reasons for doing so weren't good enough. So you conducted independent research to fix errors in your thinking, and decided to give me the benefit of the doubt until you could ask me in person.”

Hinata nodded tentatively.

“Hinata, will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?” The words left Naruto's mouth before he knew it.

“Just so we don't have any more misunderstandings... this is that dinner you promised me for being a good friend during your time in hospital?” Hinata asked cautiously.

“This is me asking you out on a date after hearing the most amazing thing I've ever heard a girl say in my life.”

Hinata was speechless.

Naruto wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. “Meet you at seven tomorrow evening by the Nagasumi Fountain?”

Hinata nodded shakily.

“Great,” Naruto beamed. “And if they dare try to send me on another mission, I'm just going to have to fake Spontaneous Chakra Combustion Disease or something. I won't let _anything_ get in the way this time.”

With that, he said goodbye and quickly left. His completely unplanned dive into the world of romance had, once again, not taken account of minor concerns such as the fact that he owned no date-worthy clothes (at least none he could wear without vivid memories of Haku), and that he hadn't the faintest idea of where on this continent one took somebody for a first date.

-o-

Naruto zoomed between clothes shops at full ninja speed. His quest was urgent, but also perilous, partly due to the outrageous price of fashionable clothing (especially since he'd never been to most of these shops before, and thus did not know which ones would have a special Naruto-only markup) and partly because he was flat-out refused entry to a number of retailers for wearing a blasphemous crime against all that was holy in fashion (sic). Oh, and it also didn't help that Naruto's own fashion sense was deep in the negative, and he could thus only rely on his memories of Tsunami's attempts to make him look presentable.

As he looked through clothes, Naruto went back to pensive mode. Was he really about to start dating Hinata? How had that happened? Sure, she was ridiculously cute, surprisingly bright, a quick and dedicated learner, earnest and compassionate, and generally A-rank girlfriend material, but was this really OK? What if it got in the way of her training? What if her family found out and decided to have him killed (which, given the impression he got of her father, they absolutely could)?

Then again, he had always intended to get closer to her, and to get to know her better, as part of his efforts to help unlock her potential. And doing those things was the whole purpose of going on dates, right? (That and kissing, which he wasn’t going to think about right now.) Besides, as future Hokage, he couldn't flinch away from a confrontation just because his opponent was the village's most powerful clan, with unique powers practically tailor-made to counter his own, capable of crushing him like a bug and only improving their public standing by doing so.

A more troubling issue was that Naruto simply had no idea how dating worked. He knew his classics, and was thus aware that successfully entering a relationship with one’s crush was a herculean task, requiring dauntless perseverance, surgically-precise timing, and enough luck to bankrupt a casino. But manga authors were far less interested in what happened afterwards, at least until jealousy, disastrous misunderstandings or villainous kidnappings raised the drama level again. Naruto somehow had an inkling that Hinata would be no better informed, which meant they were in for a great deal of improvisation. And his improvisations had a way of producing what one might term “spectacular” results, for better or worse.

There was also Haku. Did he still have feelings for the missing-nin boy? If he did, was this relevant to the present situation? Was he in some way dishonouring that connection by dating someone else straight away, or was that not how it worked at all? Not for the first time in his life, Naruto wished he had someone he could trust with these kinds of complicated issues, but the Hokage was apparently not on speaking terms with him right now, Iruka-sensei had been a bachelor as long as Naruto had known him, and he flat-out did not want to know what kind of romantic advice he might receive from Kakashi-sensei, given the man's taste in literature.

In the meantime, he was getting nowhere with his shopping. Fashion was a completely alien world to Naruto, one which might as well have had no atmosphere and been full of hungry space monsters. The only thing he could do now was the one thing he'd been praying he could avoid.

-o-

“Sakura, would you mind helping me pick out clothes for a date?”

Sakura stared at Naruto as he stood on her doorstep. “A date? You? Who would possibly want to date _you_?”

For a second, Sakura thought Naruto was going to overreact to her perfectly reasonable question, but in the end he seemed to suppress whatever he was about to say.

“Hinata.”

“Huh.” Sakura felt a momentary surge of frustration at the fact that Hinata, of all people, had not only made her move, but was now further ahead in her love life than _she_ was. There was no justice in the world.

“Congratulations,” she said reluctantly. “Now, I'll say this only once. Hinata is a delicate, sensitive soul who's far too good for the likes of you, and if you break her heart I swear I'll kick your ass so hard that the first ninja to make it to the moon will be wondering why it's littered in human teeth.”

“I'll add you to the list,” Naruto muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing. So will you help me?”

Sakura thought about it. It wasn’t that she was keen to get involved in Naruto’s love life. She had endured a great deal over the last few years to resist his attempts to have one, and the gene pool would not thank her if she started undoing all her good work now. On the other hand, if Naruto was dating Hinata, it meant he’d no longer be asking Sakura out every five minutes. Also, while she didn't know the girl all that well, she _did_ know Naruto, and there was such a thing as general female solidarity. Her conscience wouldn’t allow her to unleash something like Naruto onto that unsuspecting girl without at least trying to soften the blow.

“Maybe,” she conceded. “How long have you got to prepare?”

“The date's tomorrow evening.”

Sakura gave him a disbelieving look. “You've got to be kidding me. I guess I can help you, but it's going to be a lot of work, and I did have plans for tonight. You're going to have to make it worth my while.”

“How do you mean?” Naruto asked warily.

Sakura hadn't actually planned this far. What _did_ she want from Naruto in exchange for taking him clothes shopping? A vow of silence, maybe? Or a self-imposed restraining order while they were off-duty?

Then an idea occurred to her, one both great and terrible at once.

“I think you'd better come in.”

-o-

Sakura’s parents were serious about being good hosts, which meant she’d been drilled in the fundamentals so well that she now found herself reflexively serving tea even to a walking disaster zone like Naruto.

Staring over her teacup as she gathered her resolve, Sakura took a deep breath. It was a crazy thought, not something you would ever expect from the _sensible_ member of Team Seven… but the more she looked at it from different angles, the more it made a twisted, mind-boggling kind of sense.

“I want you to set me up on a date with Sasuke.”

“I'm sorry,” Naruto said, “I don't think I caught that.”

Sakura gritted her teeth. “A date. With Sasuke. I want you to arrange one for me.”

Naruto looked at her as if he wasn’t sure which foreign language she was speaking.

Sakura was not going to repeat herself again. The first two times had been hard enough. Instead, she cracked her knuckles so as to suggest that failing to respond would not impact well on his lifespan.

Naruto, for all his many failings, did sometimes know when not to push his luck where she was concerned.

“You want _me_ to set you up on a date with Sasuke?”

“Yeah,” Sakura nodded, looking deeply into her cup so as not to meet Naruto's gaze.

“Why _me_?” Naruto stressed the pronoun nearly to breaking point. “What makes you think that Sasuke would listen to me for a second about something so personal?”

Sakura tried to compose her thoughts. The ideas themselves weren't new, but she never thought she'd have to express them to another person before, and it wasn't easy. These weren’t bullet points for an Academy essay. This was her, Sakura, trying to convey something subtle and sophisticated to somebody who couldn’t begin to understand the material.

“Look, Sasuke is different. He's special. He sees the world in a way ordinary people like you or me couldn't hope to grasp.”

Naruto frowned at this, but didn't interrupt, which reflected well on his survival instinct.

“He's always got his eyes on the horizon. He sees great dreams and visions instead of getting bogged down in everyday things. But thanks to that... he doesn't really see other people. He doesn't talk to us. He brushes us off when we talk to him. He barely even notices we're there, like we're just scenery painted on the background of his life.”

Sakura took a sip of tea, watching Naruto carefully for his reaction, which was mercifully neutral. If he’d laughed at her feelings…

“So what does this have to do with me?” he asked.

“I know, I just know that if I could get Sasuke to see me for who I am, even for a single night, then he'd realise we're meant to be together. But I'm getting nowhere. He doesn't even register me trying to ask him out. That's why I need your help.”

“OK,” Naruto said. “I still don't see where I come in. A few weeks ago you told me I had the emotional sensitivity of a wild pig. Out of everyone who could do it, why would you want _me_ to play matchmaker for you?”

“Because,” Sakura told him, “I don't know how or why, but he knows you’re there. Maybe you’re irritating enough that even he can’t ignore you. Whatever. Sasuke notices you where he doesn't notice the rest of us. He responds to you. He talks to you like a normal person, while ignoring everyone else. He only has eyes for you.”

She stopped sharply. “Uh, that came out wrong. I didn't mean it like that. It's not like that.” Her voice rose as she suddenly remembered her speculations from the Wave mission. “It's not like that at all, you hear me! And if you try to _make_ it like that, I swear I'll—”

“Sakura,” Naruto cut her off. “I'm not after Sasuke. Ick. I'll have to wash my mouth out with soap after just saying that. I'm here to ask for your help dating Hinata, remember?”

Sakura relaxed a little, and quickly put away the leaking, freshly cracked teacup she'd been holding. It was lucky that her mother had the same temper as her, and as such bought the things in bulk.

“Sorry. Anyway, that's why I think he might listen to you. I know it's like performing complex surgery with a sledgehammer, but you really are my only choice. So can you do this for me?”

Naruto could say no. He could mock her, say she was so desperate that she’d seek help from the likes of _him_ , or comment on how she was too incompetent to pursue her love on her own. He wouldn’t leave the house alive if he did, of course, but still… for some reason Naruto’s opinion mattered enough for Sakura to feel anxious.

“All right. I'll get you a date with Sasuke by the end of the year.”

The tension flooded out of Sakura. Then she fully parsed his words.

“What? That's, like, forever! Who knows what dirty tricks Ino might use to lure him away before then!”

Naruto shook his head. “If you wanted me to trick or blackmail him into going on a date with you, that could take a few days or weeks. But is that really how you want this to go?”

“I guess not,” Sakura said. If anything, that would make her situation worse. If Sasuke ended up associating her with Naruto-brand tomfoolery, then she might as well pick him up and throw him into Ino’s arms herself. Still, the end of the year? That was practically next door to eternity.

“Trust me,” Naruto told her. “It's going to take time to find a way of making Sasuke want to go on a date with you of his own accord, but I'll manage it. It'll be a challenge worthy of Uzumaki Naruto himself—which is convenient since I _am_ Uzumaki Naruto himself. So now that's sorted out, we should get going before the shops close.”

-o-

“Try this one on.”

“No good. Next!”

“Too light!”

 “Too dark! Grimdark _is_ in style this season, but a happy-go-lucky guy like you could never pull it off.”

 “Orange and blue? No. Hell no. You die now.”

“How about those sunglasses? Hmm, we might actually be on to something here. I never thought the megane look would work on you, but... Go on, say something clever-sounding.”

“I think more works of transformative fiction should exploit their unique access to paratextual space.”

“Wait, no, what was I thinking? Just keep your mouth shut. In fact, that's a good policy for the date in general. Now try this jacket on.”

-o-

By the end of the evening, Naruto was feeling more wrung out than a sponge after a D-rank twelve-hour dishwashing mission (yes, those existed, though they were generally reserved for those who’d _really_ upset the Hokage), but he did at least have some clothes that went well together, and did not make him look insane or colour-blind—for the first time in his life, according to Sakura.

Finally at the front of the interminable queue, Naruto reached into his pocket and prepared to part with the majority of his precious A-rank pay—but in addition to his frog wallet, his hand encountered a folded-up piece of paper. A folded-up piece of paper he had not put there. After paying for his clothes, Naruto quickly made his excuses to Sakura and bolted for the nearest public toilets to read.

_Hatake Kakashi is currently facing a secret military tribunal. He is accused of attempting to sabotage an A-rank mission, and of interfering with the politics of a sovereign state without Leaf authorisation. Should his guilt be proved, he will likely face capital punishment._

_The end of the trial cannot be delayed beyond tomorrow morning, and those responsible for proving Hatake Kakashi's innocence cannot be trusted. If you are aware of any evidence which may exonerate him, by proving that he did not refuse reinforcements for his recent mission to the Country of the Wave, and that he did not order the assassination of one Gatō Amand, you must bring it to the tribunal, beneath the abandoned bookshop on the corner of Kusaribe Alley and Yagyū Road, no later than 4 a.m. tomorrow._

4 a.m. tomorrow was in six hours.


	12. Chapter 12

The text Naruto had just read was unreal. It was something out of a spy thriller. Leaf had not seen two-day secret military tribunals for decades, not since the days of the Second Hokage when the Blue Ink Crisis had necessitated the legislation of some frankly terrifying legal powers in the name of village security. The Third had repealed the laws involved not long after his accession (the history books recorded his famous line, “That which fears the light cannot be called justice”), but on the other hand they were _secret_ tribunals. They could easily have been reinstated since, with the general population left none the wiser.

And then there was the statement that those responsible for proving Kakashi-sensei’s innocence could not be trusted. This suggested that someone very influential was out to get Naruto’s instructor, someone with the power to block or pervert the course of an entire investigation. The note's sender had to be influential as well—they were aware of the details of a secret tribunal, after all—which meant that Naruto was being dragged into a conflict between heavyweights. Ordinarily, that should have been scary as the cold hells, but now... now Naruto knew that some major power in the village, one capable of overruling the Hokage himself, was also responsible for all the suffering in his life. If this was an opportunity to see some of Leaf's movers and shakers first-hand, and simultaneously find out which of them was evil enough to try to frame Kakashi-sensei for treason, there was no way he could back down. He was going to do this, for Kakashi-sensei, for a chance to take another step towards his revenge, and for his pride, which wouldn't let him give up on a challenge without trying.

All right. Time to think it through logically, step by step. Kakashi-sensei was being accused of illegally killing Gatō. Since Naruto had been the one to do the deed, it was ridiculous that they wouldn’t summon him to the trial as a witness or even an accomplice—unless the prosecution simply didn’t care about the truth. In which case, as the note implied, the trial must have been set up purely as an attack on Kakashi-sensei.

If so, the note-writer wasn’t telling Naruto to gather evidence in order to exonerate Kakashi-sensei. That wouldn’t work against somebody who already wasn’t playing fair, and who, based on the timing, had to have somehow made the preparations for this tribunal _before_ the team’s return. On the other hand, if evidence was completely useless, Naruto wouldn’t have been given the note to begin with. Presenting evidence of Kakashi-sensei’s innocence had to trip up the mysterious accuser in some other way. Perhaps all the note-writer wanted was time to prepare a counterstroke, and Naruto could buy it by slowing down the trial. Or perhaps they wanted Naruto present at the tribunal because their opponent didn’t, in which case bringing urgent new evidence would give Naruto an excuse to attend without being summoned.

Not that any of this changed Naruto’s priorities—he was still after the best evidence he could find, in the biggest possible quantities. And there was one more thing he could do...

Yes, the solution to the issue of Gatō's assassination suggested itself almost instantly. It wouldn't be enough to simply admit that he'd acted on his own rather than on Kakashi-sensei's orders, since then he might end up being tried for the same crime instead. But what he _could_ do... he didn't like it, and it made him feel more than a little dirty, but, in the end, he thought what he was going to do would be understood. Maybe even forgiven.

The hard part would be the other accusation, that Kakashi-sensei hadn’t called in reinforcements when he should have. Kakashi-sensei had told Team Seven he’d done it, and he had no reason to lie. But for all the tactical advantages of leaving nothing on interceptable scrolls, it also meant there was no physical evidence that he’d made the request.

That brought it down to witnesses. He, Sasuke and Sakura had all been asleep at the time of the hand-over, so that was right out. The staff at Takeda's Wayside Inn might have seen something, but there were a number of reasons not to rely on them, not least the fact that there was no way he could make it there and back in six hours. At least _probably_ not. Kakashi-sensei had told him that the Fox was able to beat Haku on speed using only the techniques in Naruto's arsenal, so as a last resort he could try to invent some sort of road runner technique in the time remaining to him. But that was probably best left for Plan B, or maybe Plan Z.

Naruto thought through the events of the day. The prisoner had been handed over to the four chūnin, who had taken him through the forest, to the gate, signed in at the gate, then gone through the village to the ANBU headquarters, and signed the prisoner over. So he could find out the names of the chūnin who were supposed to convey the message quite easily, and question them.

Except that was a bad idea. They were one of the two possible weak links in the chain—either the four had failed to deliver the message, or ANBU had received it and then pretended they hadn't. In case of the former, he was only going to be told lies, and would also be alerting his enemies to his investigation. In case of the latter, he was doomed from the start. If ANBU had been subverted...

Wait. There was a third option. The missing-nin, the Demon Brother whose name he could find out easily from the gate records, would not be aligned with any faction in Leaf, corrupt or otherwise, and over _him_ Naruto might actually have some leverage—more than he would over the four chūnin or ANBU, anyway. In addition, he probably didn't expect to be questioned about events taking place _after_ his capture, and wouldn't have spent time preparing a plausible story that concealed the particular information Naruto wanted. The prisoner might have witnessed Kakashi-sensei's reinforcement request, or at the very least conversations between the chūnin that might give a clue as to their motives and plans. He was still gambling that the man's ANBU jailors were innocent, but since they hadn't been involved in the reinforcements issue thus far, that was quite likely.

There was no time to lose. Naruto set off at a run towards his first destination.

              -o-

ANBU receptionist and office administrator Matsunaga Nao half-heartedly sorted through equipment requisition forms while listening to the clock tick away the minutes until the end of her shift. To her right, a thick metal door led to the rest of the complex. To her left, the smell of life-giving coffee wafted in from the entrance to the break area, where her replacement was already waiting as per standard procedure. Occasionally, her right hand would tug reflexively at the purple ponytail over her shoulder, as if to check that it was still there.

After a hundred thousand near-identical forms (or at any rate, at least thirty), her work was interrupted by a late-night visitor, a boy she couldn't help but recognise thanks to his daft orange outfit. Uzumaki Naruto, she recalled, had all but single-handedly exposed and captured a traitorous chūnin instructor before even graduating from the Academy—a feat that had put his name on a number of interesting lists.

If he maintained this track record of exceptional achievement, Nao knew, then one night in a few years' time he'd wake up to discover a mysterious masked shinobi at the foot of his bed, there to make him the offer of a lifetime—whatever the psych profile said that Naruto wanted most. And the price? One tiny betrayal. In real life, a tiny betrayal led to another, then one slightly greater, then one more which would surely be the last, until through a combination of temptation and blackmail the handler had taught his victim to murder comrades and swear allegiance to those who would see Leaf destroyed. Such cautionary tales were always told at ANBU initiation, because ANBU was the one thing that Must Not Fall—the trunk that, if it rotted, would take the entire tree down with it.

Those that failed to refuse the offer had three days’ grace, enough to wrestle with their morals and decide to report the masked shinobi to the authorities. There was no shame in being forced to confront one’s inner weakness. But if the weakness won… by the morning of the fourth day there would be nothing left of them but the paperwork.

“Hello there, Naruto,” Nao greeted him as she set those thoughts aside. “What can I do for you?”

The boy smiled as he recognised her—receptionists being among the few categories of staff not required to maintain anonymity. “I need to interrogate a prisoner, Miss Matsunaga, the missing-nin Onigahara Tariki.”

“You can call me Nao,” she told him. “But I'm afraid that as a genin, there's no possible chance you'd have the security clearance to conduct an interrogation. Your best bet is to get your team leader to authorise it for you.”

“Ah,” Naruto grimaced. “That would be the problem. My team leader is Hatake Kakashi, and he's in no position to authorise anything right now. I'm here because he needs help.”

Nao’s lethargic mood vanished in an instant. Hatake Kakashi. There was nobody in ANBU who didn’t feel _something_ upon hearing that name.

“Captain Hatake needs help? Why didn't you say so before? Tell me everything you can.”

Naruto explained the situation to her. It was a gesture of trust, given that he had no way of knowing she wasn’t in on the conspiracy, but she could see where the boy didn’t really have a choice.

“Shit,” Nao muttered. She thought for a few seconds. “All right, Naruto, I'm about to let you in on the most closely-guarded secret of the ANBU administrative staff. In times of crisis, we are formally obliged to do things by the Book.”

She half-turned, in a practised movement that left Naruto in her peripheral vision as she considered the enormous double row of thick tomes on the shelves behind her.

“What's that?”

“The Book.” Nao picked out Volume IX, always a good starting point when dealing with issues of security clearance, and set it on the desk in front of her. “Also known as _Complete Rules and Regulations of the Assassination and Battle Tactics Special Unit_. Our ultimate weapon, expanded and empowered by generations of masters of the bureaucratic arts.”

Nao opened the book and began to flick through it. “Have you passed your twelfth birthday, as recorded on your birth certificate?”

“Huh? Um, yeah, for what it’s worth.”

“Good, then clause 26 doesn't apply. Now, based on section 18, paragraph 6, and given that the current duty officer fulfils the criteria for clearance category L3, we can proceed straight to section 8...” Nao started to mutter to herself as she turned the pages back and forth, occasionally swapping in a different volume altogether, pausing only to ask Naruto the occasional inane question.

-o-

 “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of a criminal organisation involved in smuggling operations across ninja village borders?”

 

“OK... You _haven't_ submitted forms 3314, 205 and 472b (twice) in advance, but I think paragraph 16, clause 3 can get us around that...”

 

“Technically, the current Hokage is the Third, but since he's taken the post twice, section 173, paragraph 2, clause 7b allows us to count him as the Fifth...”

 

 “Have you ever carried out a mission in a squad including one or more members of Root?”

“What's Root?”

“Like ANBU, but evil.”

Nao looked up from the book sharply. “Oops, I did _not_ just say that out loud.”

Her eyes unfocused slightly as she proceeded to recite, as if from memory, “The ANBU policy towards our Root colleagues is based on complete respect and professional cooperation, and it is in no way permissible for ANBU staff to advise members of the public to stay the hell away from Root if they value their life.” She looked down again. “Anyway, that lets us invoke paragraph 4...”

-o-

_Meanwhile, somewhere deep underground, in a place very few people know exists..._

Although, as the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen was trained to the peak of physical and mental fortitude, as a man long past the age of retirement he nevertheless did not relish spending long periods of time in cold, damp subterranean spaces. As such, in spite of himself he felt a momentary sense of relief when he finally heard the inimitable “tap, tap, tap” of Shimura Danzō's cane.

It had an interesting rhythm, that sound. One who knew what to listen for would notice that it was not the slow, heavy rhythm of an old man relying on a stick for support. Nor was it the casual tap of someone carrying a cane as a convenient status symbol, or perhaps an elegant concealed weapon as some foreign aristocrats liked to do. No, to a fellow master this rhythm spoke louder than words: “I have already calculated exactly how to kill you in one motion from anywhere in the room, and am now choosing a suitable position at my leisure”. Hiruzen had seen would-be assassins flee from Danzō's presence upon hearing it.

“Why have you called me here, Hiruzen?” Danzō demanded in the tones of a long-suffering public servant whose only desire is to return to his interrupted work. Of course, given that he had been the one to arrange the meeting, this could only be a trick to assume control of the flow of conversation.

Hiruzen would not give ground so easily. “Stirring up the ghosts of a legal system long dismembered is beneath you, Danzō. How many weeks of digging through their graves did it take you to find these loopholes in the archive?”

Danzō's only reaction was a slight raising of his eyebrows. “You always lacked foresight. I, on the other hand, knew this day would come, the day when the balance between us would have to be restored, and made sure your attention was... redirected... from certain records even as you dismantled Master Tobirama’s legacy.”

“What balance? I have taken care not to interfere in your work with Root.” This was, of course, a lie, but Danzō would be hard-pressed to prove otherwise. “Do you have some other complaint?”

Danzō gave him an annoyed look. “Don't play dumb, Hiruzen, it doesn't suit you. You were too greedy. I could have tolerated your claiming the Uzumaki child—with difficulty, but I could have done it. I am nothing if not a patient man. But you should have left the Uchiha to me. Or vice versa. They are resources that belong to the entire village, not just to you.”

“So that's what this is about?” Hiruzen frowned. “You want me to give up one of this cohort's most promising children to Root?”

Danzō shook his head. “It's too late for such half-measures. Your every action keeps proving how unsuited you are to leadership. Unsurprising, of course, since that's just another thing you stole from me.”

Hiruzen opened his mouth, ready to rehash this age-old argument yet again, but Danzō didn't give him the chance.

“You can wear the hat, Hiruzen, if it matters to you so much. Who am I to stand in the way of a man desperately clinging to unearned pride? But I will not let you endanger the village with your incompetence. I will not stand by while you let those two play children's games, growing up worthless and soft like the rest of your genin. That is why I'm giving you a choice.

“You can try to keep them. Then Hatake will be convicted, and you'll lose one of your favourite tools to no gain. I'm sure I don't need to remind you what punishments Master Tobirama decreed for treason.

“Or you can allow me to assign a squad leader of my choosing to replace him.” A certain hunger shone in Danzō's eyes. It was subtle enough that even Hiruzen would have missed it, were he not familiar with every shade of expression his former best friend had to show. “If you do, your best shinobi will be released, to serve you elsewhere as you wish, and I'm not even asking to have Uzumaki and the Uchiha moved into Root. They can stay within your formal jurisdiction, but my chosen captain will have final control over their development. The girl will, of course, be transferred to another squad—I care not what you do with her—and I already have a most promising candidate ready to take her place.

“You must replace Hatake as squad leader no matter what,” Danzō told Hiruzen. “Your only choice is whether you wish to spare his life.”

Hiruzen feigned intense thought. The fact of the matter was that he already had a number of schemes working to counter Danzō's gambit, from the wildcard that was Naruto, to a plan which would ensure that Team Seven could manage without a squad leader for the immediate future. As matters stood, he couldn't conduct any sort of investigation himself. Danzō had pulled some of his best shinobi from their missions in order to watch him and throw up regular obstructions. As a man who had mastered infiltration when Danzō’s minions were still in their nappies, Hiruzen could surely have evaded their surveillance with his hands tied behind his back—but the Hokage couldn’t simply disappear. Too much of the village’s business relied on him being easy to find in an emergency, to say nothing of the political ammunition it would offer Danzō if he could catch the Hokage deceiving his own people.

In the absence of better options, the best use of his time might be to keep Danzō talking. Every minute Danzō spent in this thrice-accursed basement was another he couldn't use to reinforce his own position. And right now, every minute counted.

“You're the one who blocked the reinforcements to Kakashi's mission, I take it?” he asked. “You realise they were nearly obliterated as a result?”

Danzō shrugged. “If the Demon Fox host and the last Uchiha, under the leadership of Sharingan Kakashi, could not handle a low A-rank mission, then their power would have been insufficient for me to concern myself with their survival in the first place. On the other hand, if they survived, as they did, their power would increase significantly, as it has.”

“And I take it you are offering to sacrifice four of your own men—who were acting on your orders—if I accept the deal? All to keep those two boys out of my hands?”

“Do not waste my time with pointless questions,” Danzō said sharply. “You know as well as I do that _something is coming_. Every village is making preparations and maximising their resources—they are all doing whatever it takes to be ready. Something is coming, and I will not allow you to doom Hidden Leaf with your weakness and inaction. Too many good men have fallen, and too many more will fall, for you to dishonour their sacrifice with yet more failure.

“You were never able to make the difficult decisions, Hiruzen, never able to make the sacrifices that need to be made to protect that which matters. I am making them for you, and though I know I cannot expect any gratitude from you and yours, I expect you to at least make the effort to act rationally—for the good of your faction if not of the village. Make your decision about Hatake before the trial resumes. I will be waiting.”

And then there was only a rhythmic tapping sound, and then silence.

Hiruzen sighed. Normally, he could tie Danzō up in philosophical debate for hours if that was what it took—part tactical manoeuvre, part yet another hopeless attempt to pull someone who mattered back out of the darkness—but his talk with Naruto had left him too emotionally exhausted. He stood there for a few seconds more, then began the slow walk back. There were cunning plots to weave, and dreary paperwork to process, and at times like these he honestly couldn't say which he hated more.

-o-

“I think we're nearly there,” Nao announced, her eyes locked on Volume IV. “Would you say, in your best judgement, that the current situation threatens an irreversible breakdown of public order?”

“Yes,” Naruto nodded firmly. Which was to say he would raise the cold hells if Kakashi-sensei was falsely convicted of treason. There were vast, unplumbed depths of creativity he could draw upon if that was what it took, and if Leaf thought he was a terror before, they had no idea what he could do now that he actually had money.

“Great!” Nao finally closed the book. “Then in accordance with clause 13a(ii) of paragraph 7 of section 245 of the Rules and Regulations of the Assassination and Battle Tactics Special Unit, I am bound to escort you to the low-security section and hand you over to the captain in charge, who will facilitate the interrogation.”

She turned towards the break room door. “Yukari?” she raised her voice. “I need you to relieve me for a few minutes.”

“Sure thing, Nao-baby,” a young woman's voice responded.

Nao blanched. “Yukari, we have a _visitor_!” she hissed.

“Oh.” Another, younger, woman emerged from the break room, looking like she wished she knew an instant earth-opening-up-and-swallowing-oneself technique. “I mean 'Saitō Yukari, acknowledging reception area handover, ma'am!'”

Nao gave Naruto a look that quite plainly said, “I'm helping you out here, so just pretend that never happened”, and silently took him through the large metal door.

 

Naruto was led to the entrance to the prison section, and an enormous metal door that looked like the armour-plated primordial ancestor of which other security doors were but inferior descendants. After a few words from Nao, the behemoth reluctantly screeched open. On the other side, the duty officer, a tall ANBU man with a crow-themed mask, told her to go back to her post, and Naruto to wait. He then half-turned back, keeping one eye on Naruto, and gave a guard a few brief instructions.

Several seconds later, a loud voice came out of nowhere, nearly making Naruto jump. Loudspeakers, like most high technology, were rare and expensive as heck, but then you could probably buy a small country with ANBU’s annual budget. (If not, you could certainly conquer it.)

“Attention: Areas Three through Seven are now at Yellow Alert. Prisoner no. 435 is now being transferred from Cell Block D to Interrogation Chamber Four. Repeat: Areas Three through Seven are now at Yellow Alert. Prisoner no. 435 is now being transferred from Cell Block D to Interrogation Chamber Four.”

The officer returned his attention to Naruto. If he was even slightly surprised to see a newly-graduated genin in a secure facility belonging to the village’s elite special forces, he gave no sign of it.

“Listen carefully,” he told Naruto in the emphatic monotone of someone who had delivered the same speech, word for word, a thousand times, and taken more pride in it with every repetition. “These are the rules for using a private interrogation chamber. You surrender all weapons, loose items, jewellery et cetera before entering the room. You do not move from your seat unless there are at least four guards in the room with you. If for any reason you find yourself out of your seat, you do not under any circumstances approach the prisoner, not even if you think you'll still be out of reach. You do not use ninjutsu. Repeat these instructions back to me.”

Naruto did, feeling more than a little anxious.

“There will be four guards outside. The acoustic properties of the room scramble speech, but they do not conceal the fact that you are speaking. If the guards hear shouting, or any noise that doesn't sound like a person speaking, they will enter immediately. If they hear nothing for a full minute, they will enter immediately. If you press the concealed alarm button under the edge of the table nearest to you, they will enter immediately. If there is any impact against the door, they will enter immediately. Repeat this information back to me.

“If anything unexpected happens, summon the guards immediately. If you feel threatened, no matter what the reason, or even if there seems to be no reason, summon the guards immediately. If you feel confused, or have difficulty thinking or moving, summon the guards immediately. If you find yourself having thoughts or feelings inappropriate to the situation, whether in nature or intensity, summon the guards immediately. Repeat these instructions back to me.”

Satisfied with Naruto’s excellent memory, the captain led him to the interrogation chamber. To Naruto's disappointment, whoever had designed the ANBU complex had put some thought into it, and left a route that gave visitors no chance to satisfy their curiosity about the actual layout and contents of the prison.

Naruto did, however, get a glimpse of the ANBU approach to secure construction inside the chamber itself. A table and two chairs were arranged parallel to the wall with the door, such that anyone coming in had quick and easy access to both the visitor and the prisoner. All furniture was bolted to the floor, and while the interrogator's chair merely looked as if it had been hewn from one piece of stone, the prisoner's chair came with floor-mounted “boots” to hold the feet, and locks on the back to fit the hand restraints all prisoners wore at all times. Anyone sitting in that monstrosity would be effectively immobilised.

In defiance of manga convention, which demanded one tabletop lamp providing a narrow beam that left the questioner's face in shadow, the room was brightly lit by a ceiling-mounted light the rough size and shape of a dinner plate. As such, Naruto had no difficulty making out the baleful glare Onigahara Tariki was directing at him.

Tariki looked considerably worse for wear compared to their last meeting, with fresh scars visible on his face and hands, and grey streaks in his previously black hair. The standard-issue ANBU prisoner uniform, high-visibility orange with strips of reflective material, and “ANBU PRISONER 435” emblazoned across front and back in big white letters, stood out starkly against the oppressive, featureless grey of the room.

Naruto had no idea how to interrogate a prisoner. He would much rather have left doing so to a professional, but right now he didn't know whom to trust, and could not be sure that ANBU hadn't been caught up in the strange power politics surrounding Kakashi-sensei's trial. He’d managed to get this far without anyone trying to stop him, but he couldn’t afford to push his luck further.

“My name is Uzumaki Naruto,” he finally told the prisoner. “I have something I need to ask you.”

Tariki did not respond except to sneer ever so faintly, as if to remind Naruto of the absurdity of asking for favours from the man he’d robbed of everything.

This was not lost on Naruto, who had spent most of the journey here racking his brain for leverage he could use to get the information he wanted out of a hostile source.

“There are things I could offer you in exchange,” he said with more confidence than he felt.

Tariki gave a short, sarcastic laugh, almost a bark. “Of course there are. Go ahead, wave your magic wand and make the Mizukage forgive my so-called crimes. Or pull the Sword That Cuts Iron out of your ass and use it to break these bonds so I can escape. Or maybe you're the Second Hokage in disguise, and you can blackmail the very demons of Hell to give my brother back to me, how about that? No? Then fuck off and stop wasting the little time I have left.”

Naruto was taken aback by the sheer disgust in Tariki's voice. He had to do something about that. Trying to negotiate while the missing-nin was in this frame of mind would be like getting blood from a stone. What was he supposed to do? Genin weren’t taught interrogation techniques, and detective manga could only take him so far. What would Inspector Tsunemori do at a time like this? Try to build rapport?

“I'm sorry about your brother,” Naruto said.

The prisoner gave him a look of weary contempt. “Subtle like an explosive tag to the face. I'm guessing they don't keep you around for your interrogation skills.” He looked at Naruto's costume. “Or your stealth.”

He sighed. “Look, you little prick, I can tell you're not getting the hint, so I'm going to break this down for you nice and simple, and then you're going to fuck off and leave me alone. The best case scenario for me is that your ANBU buddies keep torturing me until they decide I've got nothing left to tell them. Then, they either execute me or keep me imprisoned for the rest of my life, depending on whether your leaders want to look strong or compassionate that day. Then your medic-nin vultures pick over my remains to see if they can drag any Mist secrets out of them. Then if there are any bones left they get chucked on a shelf in some storage facility and left to gather dust. If I'm lucky, they might even be in the same room as my brother's.

“That's the best case scenario. The more likely one is that after ANBU's done torturing me, Leaf acknowledges they've got me, and sells me back to Mist. Then _our_ ANBU tortures me until they've got everything they can out of me, including anything I've learned about Leaf, and believe me, they make your ANBU look like fucking pansies. Then they give me a nice, _thorough_ public execution to remind everyone else what Mist does to 'traitors'. And if there's anything left of my body after the execution's finally over, they make sure to desecrate the remains so my spirit can never be at peace.

“So with all that in mind, just what do you think you can offer me, you little shitstain?”

Naruto opened his mouth. No words came. He’d known, in the abstract, that it was possible for interrogation to include torture when the safety of the village was at stake. He’d known, in the abstract, that when a missing-nin chose to abandon their village, they also chose to abandon the rights and protections that their village guaranteed. He’d known, in the abstract, that some criminals were too dangerous to ever be given their freedom.

Now the abstract was here, and there was no escape.

There were no words. There were no thoughts. Time passed in silence.

A guard opened the door. “Do you need help?”

Concise, short syllables, easier to answer quickly than “Are you all right?”, the back of Naruto's mind noted absently.

It was Tariki who responded. “Take him out. He's done.”

Acting on autopilot, Naruto started to get up. He was nearly out of his chair—

If I leave now, Kakashi-sensei will die.

It was only that thought flashing across his mind that stopped him. He stood still, unaware that his body was in an awkward half-standing position, and repeated it to himself, deliberately now.

If I leave now, Kakashi-sensei will die.

If I leave now, Kakashi-sensei will die.

If I leave now, Kakashi-sensei will die.

Slowly, he made himself sit back down. “I—I'm fine. Thank you.”

The guard looked at him appraisingly for a few seconds. “Interrogation is draining. If you find your mental, emotional or physical condition deteriorating, you should end the session and resume after you've had time to recover.”

Naruto nodded. “Th-Thanks. But I need to get this done tonight.”

The guard left.

Naruto took a deep breath. It felt like dropping a grain of sand into an abyss, but he still said it. “I _am_ sorry. About your brother, and about what's going to happen to you.”

“Spare me,” Tariki told him. “You won, we lost. You live, we die. Are you really going to pretend you'd rather it was it the other way round?”

“N-No,” Naruto said. “But... But that doesn't mean I want it to be like this!” His voice was still shaking. “I fought you because I had to, to protect my team and my client! That doesn't mean I wanted you to be tortured and killed!”

Tariki rolled his eyes to the grey concrete heavens. “Sage's blood, I'd rather be back with the ANBU and their clever little instruments than listening to this shit.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Look, you fucking worthless excuse for a ninja, you think you have some sort of moral high ground for being on the defending team? Let's be clear about this. Sooner or later, it's going to be _your_ mission to assassinate some poor sucker whose only fault is that he's got enemies rich enough to afford ninja. Or maybe you'll be stealing documents with trade secrets. Suddenly, poof! Some big-name merchant's out of business, and his employees don't have jobs, and their families don't have food on the table, and their children starve to death, and tears and drama all round, and you're the guy who made it happen. Or maybe you could only take the missions that let you come out smelling of roses, and turn down the rest. Except do you know what they call guys who refuse to obey orders? Traitors. I'm sure you'll be rushing to join the club for the sake of your precious morality now you know what _that_ means.

“Fuck it, why am I even explaining this to you?” Tariki asked as if the thought had just occurred to him. “I'm not your master, I'm your fucking worst enemy, the guy from whom you took everything.” He paused. “But you know what, whatever. Maybe this is my last chance to hurt you, or maybe I’m doing you a favour by opening your eyes to the truth. I don’t know anymore. Listen up, because I’m going to strip away your retarded little illusions, and then you can fuck off and take your 'oh I'm so noble' bullshit with you.

“This is your world. Are you with me? This is where you live. You took money to protect that bridge-builder guy. Why? Because your village wants money, because money is power, and power is survival. Jiriki and I took Gatō's money to kill the same guy. Why? Because money is power, and power is survival. Gatō wanted him dead so he could keep squeezing money out of the people of Wave. Why? Go on, take a guess.

“There's only one thing anyone wants, in the end, and that's to survive. Love? Ambition? Duty? Revenge? Good luck with those when you're six feet under. Survival always comes first. And it never comes free. There's a price to pay just for staying alive in this shithole of a world, and sooner or later you'll have to make other people pay it for you before they do the same to you. And then you'll want power like you've never wanted it before in your life. Those with power can bargain. They can choose what to give and what to take. Without power, you own nothing, you _are_ nothing, because everything you have and everything you are can be taken away at somebody else’s whim.” There was a painful stress to those last few words.

“And you, kid, are no special little snowflake. Pretend to be noble, pretend to be a fucking tragic hero trying to do good in a fucked-up world. Truth is, that world is part of you and you are part of it, and at the end of the day, whether you're a holy saint or an irredeemable monster, you'll reach for power or you'll be crushed underfoot by the guys who do. No third option.”

Naruto's hands, safely concealed beneath the edge of the table, were trembling. Not only had he lost control of the conversation (if he'd ever had it to begin with), but that impulse to flee, barely suppressed to begin with, was surging again. Tariki's sheer conviction gave his words the weight of hammer blows, and Naruto had no defence that would let him stand his ground. What was he supposed to say? “No, you're wrong—you might be about to be tortured and executed, but the world is all sunshine and roses really”? What evidence did he have that Tariki was wrong about even a single one of his claims?

The prisoner just watched him, with a glint of satisfaction in his eyes, waiting for him to get up and leave.

Naruto wanted to. The desire dominated his mind, intense enough to block out nearly everything else. But if he left now, Kakashi-sensei would die. But if he didn't leave now... the thought refused to complete.

In the chaotic miasma of Naruto's thoughts, there was a part of his mind desperately trying to think rationally, aware on a things-you-drop-fall-down level that this was what you were supposed to do when in trouble, but not having the resources to manage it. Suddenly, it saw an easy-to-make logical connection and went for it. Naruto wanted to leave. If he left, Kakashi-sensei would die. Therefore Naruto wanted Kakashi-sensei to die.

What.

Naruto snapped out of his trance with a jarring sensation of alertness, as if he'd just found himself about to walk into a lamppost. Did he just conclude on the basis of logical syllogism that he wanted Kakashi-sensei to die? That... that was stupid on so many levels, and so profoundly, that he didn't have the words to describe it.

  1. Let's just pretend that never happened, and get back to work.



Naruto took a deep breath, then another one. Ninja Teaching Eleven: breathing techniques are the quickest and easiest way to take control of your mental state. It took time, but gradually, Naruto's breathing grew slower and deeper. Some semblance of order returned to his mind, and he began to think.

First off, conviction and emotional impact didn't make an assertion more true. He'd been on the receiving end of enough angry rants and stern lectures to know that. At best, it might be evidence that the other person really believed what they were saying. Then again, there was an odd sort of correlation in Naruto's experience between people with strong beliefs and people who were horribly wrong, from the villagers convinced that he was a monster whose death was the only way to save the village, to Haku and his unswerving devotion to a man who couldn't begin to value him as much as he deserved.

Likewise, while an adult's superior experience meant they’d had more learning opportunities, it didn't automatically make them smarter or wiser. Having lots of raw data wasn’t the same as knowing how to draw the right conclusions. Funny, really, but when you’d been around enough adults, you tended to find that the injunction to listen to one's elders was the _only_ thing they all agreed on.

All right. That was the theoretical, easy part. Now he had to turn to Tariki's actual words, and that was still tough. He wanted him to be wrong, with an aching (if now tolerable) desperation, but either way, all he could do was test his words against reality and see if they survived.

He didn't have to look far for examples of selfishness and evil in the world. His daily treatment at the hands of the villagers was enough, and at first sight it supported Tariki's case all the way. Indeed, that was part of what had made it so hard to argue against him in the first place—even without thinking about it consciously, some part of Naruto had resonated with a picture of the world that matched his own experiences so closely. But when he looked more carefully...

Every time they saw him, they hurt him... because they thought it would help them survive? Because they thought that if they didn't, he'd hurt them first? Because they thought it would give them power?

No. None of it quite fit, no matter how he turned it around in his head. They hurt him because... well, because they honestly believed that he was a monster, different and alien and dangerous. Most of them, anyway, the ones whose corruption wasn't absolute. And because they honestly believed that hurting monsters, and people who were too different in general, was right and proper, or at least permissible and understandable. It didn't make their behaviour forgivable—nothing could do that—but it did make it comprehensible. They weren't, for the most part, people who had sold out their morality in the name of staying alive. They were people who tried to live moral lives, but whose morality was upside down because they were stupid and short-sighted and selfish and unempathic and terminally incapable of thinking for themselves or taking even the slightest bit of responsibility for their own decisions.

And yet this world, a cold and lonely hell that encouraged people to walk around with their eyes closed hurting each other, had also given birth to Iruka-sensei and Hinata and Haku. Tariki wasn't wrong—the world _was_ a place of cruelty and selfishness and conflict in which people hurt and exploited each other, in which the strong trampled the weak, in which power was the only guarantee of safety even as it corrupted those who achieved it. And yet.

“You're wrong,” Naruto told Tariki. “There are people in this world who try to do the right thing, not because it'll let them win conflicts or bring them profit, but because they want to help others and make the world a better place. They—”

“That's it?” the prisoner exclaimed. He'd obviously been expecting this response, or something like it. “That's the best you've got? You really _are_ just off your mummy's tit, aren't you?”

He smirked. “So you believe in heroes, do you? Then let me tell you what this world does to heroes. Take your First Hokage. He wanted to unite the clans and teach them to live in peace and prosperity alongside commoners, so he wasted his life on diplomacy and negotiation and finally founded Leaf. Real noble, huh? All it got him was to be killed off by Uchiha Madara, who knew the score and had spent _his_ life becoming a fucking unstoppable god of death. Oh, and the village system? We have that to thank for three great wars that were a thousand times more devastating than all the little clan skirmishes that had come before.”

Naruto opened his mouth, but Tariki wasn't done.

“Who else might an ignorant little brat like you worship? How about the First’s granddaughter, Princess Tsunade of the Leaf Three? Hero _and_ genius. Single-handedly revived the fading art of Leaf-style medical ninjutsu. Improved on it, even. Nobody wants to die, so of course she was hailed as a living legend. Except then she decided to take the logical next step, and she proposed that every squad should have its own medic-nin. Poor girl actually thought her superiors cared about saving lives. Do you know what happened?”

Naruto shook his head. He could guess, from the fact that Leaf _didn't_ have all that many medic-nin, but his history classes hadn't mentioned anyone called Tsunade. That meant something, if she'd really been that important.

“She got turned down. Know what happens when too many ninja live long enough to get real strong? Of course you don't, you idealistic little prick. They start getting ambitious. And there's nothing worse when you rule a ninja village than someone who thinks they can rule it better than you, and won't wait their turn.

“What,” the missing-nin went on, “don't tell me you thought ninja fatality rates were all bad luck? Come _on_. If the Powers That Be wanted their ninja to survive, they'd have fewer of them, and invest their resources in training each one to jōnin level, or as close as talent allows, instead of mass-producing a bunch of useless genin each year. I've _been_ on the front lines of serious battles. Know what happens? First, they throw the genin and the weaker chūnin at the enemy, the guys who might have mastered one or two techniques at best, and any fighter worth his salt kills them off by the dozen. Only then do they send in anyone who can make a difference. Guys like you? You're meat for the grinder, you're lambs for the slaughter, you're the caltrops thrown to the ground to slow down pursuit for that one extra second while the real ninja get away.

“I like that look on your face. Means you're listening. If all that kunai fodder survived, it would only inconvenience those in power, so Tsunade's proposal was rejected. Then the Third Great Ninja War broke out, and she lost everyone she had ever loved, starting with her own brother, because there were no medic-nin at their side to save them. After that, she vanished, never to be seen again. She'd learned her lesson about trying to change the status quo.

“And to finish off, how about the Fourth Hokage? Gave his life, everything he had, to seal away the Demon Fox and save Leaf. How's that worked out for him? He's dead and rotting, all the big reforms he had planned never happened, and the host he chose became such a bloodthirsty monster that you people don’t even dare speak its name in case you draw its attention. _That's_ what happens to good people in this world.”

Naruto felt once again like he was clinging to a reef in the middle of a stormy sea, the prisoner's relentless litany of cynicism a swirling whirlpool trying its best to drag him in and drown him. He held on, however, because this time he had a response.

“You're missing the point.”

“Huh?” _That_ , Tariki had not seen coming.

“So good people are rare. So horrible things happen to them. So they never get what they were hoping for. That's not the point.”

“What are you—”

But Naruto was on a roll now, finally reaching his time to talk back. “The point is: their existence isn't magic. It's not some great cosmic coincidence that makes good people appear in a world that's full of evil and suffering and darkness. Reality doesn't work that way. There are rules, there are concrete and discoverable reasons why some people do good and others do evil.”

Naruto paused dramatically.

“And being a ninja is all about making the rules your bitch.”

Tariki goggled. “You're fucking kidding me. _That's_ your response? You think you can change the world? What the fuck do you think you can possibly do?”

“I'm going to become Hokage,” Naruto told him. “I'm going to use my intelligence to understand whatever in cold hell is wrong with people that makes them hurt each other, and I'm going to figure out a way to make it stop.”

“And what makes you think that _you_ , some tiny, naive little prick who doesn't know the first thing about real life, can pull something like that off?” Tariki asked, sounding intrigued, like he was an entomologist listening to the first report on a new and completely alien species of beetle.

“Because I'm me,” Naruto said. “Because I'm a few months out of the Academy, and I've saved a country, beat a jōnin, and forced S-rank secrets out of a head of state, and that's _before_ figuring out how to use the incredible unique powers lying dormant inside me. One of the richest men in the world is dead right now because he sent you to interfere with my first C-rank mission.

“This is my world now, and I will teach it to play by my rules.”

Then there was a sound so unexpected that Naruto took a second to recognise it. Tariki was laughing.

His whole body was shaking to the limits of what the restraints allowed, the laugh coming from the very depths of his body, so loud that an ANBU guard opened the door briefly to assess the situation. It seemed to last for hours, and every time Naruto thought the man was about to stop, he suddenly went into convulsions again.

“Oh, man,” Tariki told him once he got his breath back. “That was fucking priceless. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Makes me wish I could live to see just how you're going to crash and burn, because I'd bet my immortal fucking soul it's going to be spectacular.”

He gave Naruto a more serious look. “Maybe I underestimated you. If even half of what you just said is true, you're so goddamn insane I actually want to see you take a stab at it.”

The prisoner paused, then smirked, but this time seemingly at himself, as if half-disbelieving what he was about to say. “All right, kid, whatever it is you came here for, you get one shot. Give me your pitch, and I'll hear it out.”

Naruto focused on his breathing again. Well, that conversation probably wasn't in any interrogation manual in the world. While it had been satisfying, in the end, to be able to boast to someone about all the things he'd genuinely done, it was more than a little uncomfortable to realise that his ambitions were growing faster than he could really take in their scope. But for now, he'd given himself the opportunity he needed to pursue his original goal, namely _saving Kakashi-sensei's life_.

So, what could he offer this man, in the end? The clues were there, if he'd read him right. The tricolon crescendo of his impossible demands. The futures he’d described for himself, and how they ended. A few odd words. Balance that with what Naruto was likely to be able to get, with his very specific field of influence...

“I can offer you and your brother an honourable burial next to each other in Leaf's Foreign Shinobi Cemetery, with the rites you request.”

Tariki gave him a strange look, surprise mixed with intense attention. Was there maybe, just maybe, some suppressed hope in those eyes? “That doesn't happen to captured missing-nin. We're barely human in the eyes of the law. What makes you think they'll bend the rules that far at some genin's request?”

That was the easy part. “The Hokage owes me a favour. A big favour. The kind you can't measure in ryō.”

Tariki looked him in the eye. “Since you're here, I guess you managed to survive your mission with that bridge-builder guy, and I can believe that Gatō sent a jōnin to finish the job after Jiriki and I failed. So I suppose there's a chance you're telling the truth about this part as well, and you really did get one over on the Hokage. In which case, what do you want from me?”

“Tell me what happened the day after we fought—fully, honestly and to the best of your ability.”

“That's it?”

“Yeah. Now, since we're technically enemies, I could add a bunch of conditions about all the different ways in which you're not allowed to lie, and you could look for loopholes in them, but instead I'll just say this. What you're buying is the right to leave this life with honour. How much truth you pay with is a direct reflection of how much you think that right is worth.”

Tariki gave him an incredulous look. “I really can't tell whether you've got no balls at all, or huge swinging ones of steel. You kill my brother and take me prisoner to be tortured and killed. Then you cry like a baby when I tell you the basics of how life really works. Then you boast like you're the second coming of the Sage of Six Paths. Then you bargain with me and spend favours for what you could get for free through torture. And now you blackmail me with the last thing I've got left to care about.

“All right, final question. How do I know that when you've got what you want, you won't walk out of that door and forget I ever existed?”

“Who, me? The 'fucking tragic hero trying to do good in a fucked-up world'?” Naruto grinned. “The 'naive little prick who doesn't know the first thing about real life'? I guess you don't. But if you haven't figured out what kind of person I am yet...”

Tariki sighed. “I could have died instead of Jiriki, and then he'd be the one here, stuck dealing with this bullshit. But no, he always knew to get out before the shit hit the fan, everywhere from the women's baths to Hidden Mist itself. So what do you want to know?”

-o-

Some time later, Naruto returned to the reception area to find three ninja in unfamiliar, predominantly dark grey uniforms, arguing with a cheerful Yukari.

“These documents are filled out to every last specification you gave us! Now, for the last time, you are to hand over prisoner Onigahara Tariki to us immediately for urgent transfer to Root facilities! We are _not_ going back to get these forms redone _again_!”

Yukari smiled. “Of course, sir. Let me take a look. Now, I see you've submitted them in triplicate, with the date in the top right hand corner in the correct order, signed and countersigned by the relevant authorities with name readings provided in the appropriate format...”

She continued to talk softly to herself as she carefully examined every last element of each of the three forms, taking care to do so with the speed of a sleeping sloth.

“Thank you. Now, I will be happy to take you through to the main complex to carry out your request... as soon as you correct this error here.”

“What?!”

“Section 71, paragraph 4, clause 9 of the Rules and Regulations of the Assassination and Battle Tactics Special Unit clearly stipulates that forms referring to prisoners originally from the Village Hidden in the Mist must list their names in both standard script and Traditional Mist characters, for reasons of compatibility with other document databases.”

“But Traditional Mist characters haven't been used for generations! There probably isn't anyone outside Mist who can even read them!”

“I'm sorry for your inconvenience, sir,” Yukari responded in a tone of pure innocent helpfulness. “Before you leave, I should remind you that any action likely to reveal Mist missing-nin Onigahara Tariki's presence in Leaf to Mist authorities, including requesting the Traditional Mist characters used in writing his name, would be deemed an act of treason if performed without the authorisation of the Hokage's Office.”

“This isn't over, damn you!”

“Have a nice day!”


	13. Chapter 13

Kakashi, heavily (but in truth, insufficiently) restrained, sat in the defendant’s cage and pondered his options. Time was running out. The Hokage’s defence had been spirited, unleashing a barrage of legal minutiae with the speed and precision of his legendary Shadow Shuriken Technique. Yet all their efforts had been hobbled from the beginning. With the limitations Danzō had been able to impose on what testimony and evidence they were permitted to offer (and the fact that there was barely any available of either in the first place), all they could do was try to demonstrate that the tribunal itself was illegal. Of course, since Danzō had spent a great deal of time preparing for this, even altering records to make sure the Hokage missed outdated laws he’d intended to repeal, there were no easy openings to be found.

Kakashi toyed with the idea of escaping and becoming a missing-nin as an alternative to execution, but he wasn’t exactly fond of the prospect. There weren’t many things left that he cared about in life, and he’d lose them all if he abandoned the village (except perhaps Jiraiya-sensei’s novels, which could be bought anywhere on the continent). Nor did he relish the idea of someday being forced to face his former comrades in mortal combat. Kakashi saw himself as falling right in between the two “safe” categories: the missing-nin whose capture wasn’t a priority because they were of little threat to the village (like the rare traitorous genin), and the missing-nin whose capture wasn’t a priority because of the number of lives it would cost (like Uchiha Itachi). In other words, he would be the kind of target that elite hunter-nin existed to hunt. And even if he managed to survive, what was he to live for? Kakashi had never seen himself as a hardcore village loyalist like Asuma, but when it came down to it, he found it striking how little purpose he had in life that wasn’t in some way tied up with Leaf.

Death as a victim. Life as a traitor. There wasn’t much time left to make the decision.

-o-

A dart flew through the corridor, passing just outside the blocking reflex area of the first guard. The second had time to see it, and after quickly checking it for explosive tags, moved to block. Before he could, however, it exploded in a puff of mist. The guard leapt back, his attention focused on defending against a possible attack out of the smokescreen.

But his defensive reaction, appropriate in most normal circumstances, let him down. The moment the mist began to fade, revealing a boy in an improbable orange and blue outfit, the latter was already throwing a second dart. Even as the first guard struck him down, it was already too late. The dart was in the air, thrown not at the second guard but past him, and by the time he made the mental adjustment necessary to intercept rather than evade it, it was already speeding towards the stairs to the tribunal room.

-o-

The judge cleared his throat. Although Kakashi had attended a number of trials and military tribunals in his life (though not usually in this capacity), he had never seen the man before. Somehow, this did not surprise him.

“Having reviewed all pertinent evidence on the charges of mission sabotage and treason against the Village Hidden in the Leaves, this tribunal hereby finds the defendant...”

Kakashi gritted his teeth against the inevitable.

“Objection!”

-o-

Naruto had never dreamt he’d get a chance to say that, and in a (sort of) real courtroom, no less. First _Ikazuchi Saga_ , and now this. Naruto strongly suspected that normal people’s lives did not end up regularly mirroring the manga they were reading, but on reflection, this way was so much better.

Of course, in the manga the person shouting this was a qualified lawyer who sometimes knew what he was doing, and did not then promptly have his arms twisted behind his back by a pair of angry guards.

Naruto quickly assessed the situation. There was Kakashi-sensei in a chair that was less furniture and more armoured container, similar to what he’d seen in the ANBU complex. Off to the right was a clerk writing down the proceedings. In the middle, on a raised dais, three people were seated behind a desk. The Hokage, giving no sign he recognised Naruto, was on the left. In the middle was the judge Naruto had interrupted, a balding man in a voluminous brown robe, with oversized round glasses that gave him the look of a very important mole. And to his right was an old man with a bandaged right arm and right eye, looking bored. Aside from a few other officials and guards, there was a conspicuous lack of an audience, or indeed a jury. Naruto was no expert, but he was pretty sure trials were supposed to have those things for a reason.

Without any particular emotion in his voice, the unfamiliar old man said, “The Uzumaki child. I see. Guards, take him to an isolated cell, and prepare an interrogation chamber. We will determine an appropriate punishment once we know how he infiltrated this tribunal.”

“Wait!” Naruto shouted, aware that all eyes were still on him. “I have vital testimony that’s relevant to this trial!”

The old man shook his head slightly. “If we had need of your testimony at this tribunal, Uzumaki, we would have summoned you when it began. Guards...”

This was not going the way Naruto had hoped. The guards started to drag him towards the door. A couple of metres more and he was going to lose his one chance to save Kakashi-sensei, just like that, dismissed with a few simple words. What were his options? Violence? No. Blackmail? Maybe. If he could—

Naruto caught sight of a subtle movement, the Hokage’s hands folding beneath the desk into two familiar hand signals. _Need_ and the first half of _Explain later_.

Naruto’s mind raced. Why only the first half? Oh, there wasn’t a separate sign for “explain”. But who needed to explain what? Was the Hokage telling Naruto to explain something? His recent actions? His intentions? Or was Naruto the one who needed—

“Hold it!” Naruto exclaimed, hoping against cold hell he’d hit the right interpretation, and aware that he would only get one shot. “If my testimony is being dismissed, I have the right to an explanation...” a number of fingers extended, “under article 6, clause 5,” a quick side-to-side eye movement, a repetition, “no, 15, of the...” more signs. _Lair, Miles_? “...Fair Trials Act!”

The Hokage smiled.

-o-

Danzō’s habitual frown concealed the sense of satisfaction he felt on the inside. Finally, Hiruzen had dispensed with the tiresome legal fencing and brought out his real weapon. Needless to say, Danzō had never had any intention of making it easy for him—one of his first acts during the trial had been to cite the obscure ancient law that permitted an accuser to forbid a Demon Beast’s host from testifying (lest the Demon Beast manipulate the host and thereby extend its influence over the trial, as if beings of their order had any interest in the petty squabbles of men). By locking Uzumaki out of the tribunal entirely, he’d completely disarmed Hiruzen in one of the trial’s two sections.

Hiruzen’s counter was effective, if late in coming. Now Danzō had to either admit Uzumaki to the trial after all, or explain to the boy that he was the host to the Demon Fox, doing which without permission from the office of the Hokage would break the very law he’d helped write. It was entirely possible that the boy already knew, after the events at the so-called Bridge of Courage, but the mission report did not spell it out, and so for legal purposes Danzō had to assume ignorance.

Of course, as with any well-formed plan, his opponent’s best moves only played into Danzō’s hands.

-o-

“Let it be put on record that I retract my earlier objection to Uzumaki Naruto’s testimony.”

“Shimura Danzō, objection retracted...” the clerk muttered, conveniently giving Naruto the old man’s name.

Danzō met Naruto’s eyes for the first time. “I commend your knowledge of the law, Uzumaki,” he told him in a cool, measured voice. “Proceed with your testimony.”

What Naruto heard was, “Well done, boy. You’ve just removed one pebble from the avalanche that is about to bury you alive. By all means amuse me before you run out of air.” Danzō’s one-eyed gaze was filled not with hostility but with curiosity, as if genuinely interested in how long Naruto could hold his breath.

Was this the man who’d sentenced him to a life as an outcast? He could believe it. To Danzō, it seemed Naruto barely qualified as a diversion, a feeble attempt at rebellion from a tool found outside its drawer. Or was he just projecting his own feelings onto a stranger? He didn’t really know who this man was, or what his motives were for trying to frame Kakashi-sensei. The only thing Naruto knew for certain, after hearing Danzō speak, was that he was being severely underestimated.

“Kakashi-sensei didn’t order me to kill Gatō,” Naruto announced. “In fact, I didn’t even kill him.”

All eyes in the room went wide, especially Kakashi-sensei’s.

“What do you mean?” the Hokage asked. “Are you saying that somebody else killed him? Or that, early reports from the Country of the Wave notwithstanding, Gatō Amand is still alive?”

Naruto suppressed the cold feeling in his heart. He thought he’d made his peace with this, with the betrayal he had to commit, but the wave of crippling guilt said otherwise. Even so, Naruto told himself, he had to do this. He had to use the most effective tools he could think of. There was too much at stake.

“Gatō was killed by the Mist missing-nin Haku, acting independently.”

Another fragment of innocence sacrificed for the power to protect someone who mattered. Another step towards being a true ninja.

Danzō raised an eyebrow. “You would have us believe that a _missing-nin_ ,” he spoke the word as if it referred to some particularly wretched species of parasitic worm, “turned around and killed his employer, thereby losing his payment and doing great harm to his professional reputation. By all means, Uzumaki, do tell us what motive you propose for this extraordinary act.”

“I seduced him.”

Mouths dropped open, including the Hokage’s. Kakashi-sensei, on the other hand, relaxed a little, probably figuring out Naruto’s line of attack.

Danzō’s expression finally changed, from dispassionate curiosity to frank disgust. “You did _what_?”

Once Naruto had begun, it was easier to carry on. “I approached him while he was in civilian guise, determined his identity and seduced him. I can call witnesses, including our host Tsunami and the staff of the Silver Leaf Inn in the Country of the Wave. If you want to, you can suspend the trial for a few weeks while you send messengers.”

“This is preposterous. Are you saying _you_ , a twelve-year—”

“There is precedent,” the Hokage cut him off. “During the Warring Clans period, child spies were expected to go to any necessary lengths to fulfil their missions, no less than their seniors. Even in modern times, there have been incidents like Hidden Rock’s Yamane scandal, where—”

“Enough,” Danzō scowled. “You’ve made your point.”

He turned back to Naruto. “So, Uzumaki, you are confessing before this court that you... colluded... with a Mist missing-nin without your squad leader’s explicit permission, or even his awareness, and further conspired with this missing-nin to alter the course of your mission?”

From the way he saw Kakashi-sensei stiffen out of the corner of his eye, Naruto guessed that saying “Yes” would be a very bad idea. The facts were the facts, though. He _had_ completely bypassed Kakashi-sensei in his efforts to deal with Haku, and probably broken a dozen laws in doing so. At the same time, he sensed the trap in Danzō’s words. Danzō probably wanted him to claim he had Kakashi-sensei’s permission—at which point the trial would immediately revert to Kakashi-sensei being accused of treason.

But he couldn’t just say nothing. Hesitation would be taken as a sign of weakness, and Naruto’s instincts told him unambiguously that he did not want to show weakness in front of Danzō. He opened his mouth—

“If I may clarify a certain detail...” The Hokage interrupted him before he could speak. “I have consulted the latest missing-nin postings provided by Hidden Mist, and this Haku is not listed. We must infer that he is a personal apprentice of Zabuza’s, recruited and trained without Mist’s involvement. As such, he must be legally classified as an unaligned shinobi rather than a missing-nin, and interactions with him do not break Leaf law.”

Danzō flicked his good hand in the air dismissively. “Mere sophistry. Haku serves the missing-nin Zabuza. Zabuza’s interests are his interests. In conspiring with Haku, Uzumaki may as well have been conspiring with Zabuza himself.”

Naruto had not wasted the precious seconds he’d been given to think. “What I did went directly counter to Zabuza’s interests. During the fight on the bridge, I told Zabuza I’d assassinated Gatō, which stopped him killing me when his side had the advantage. Then, when Haku went to investigate, he discovered he had a chance to save my life, as well as avoid putting Zabuza’s at risk, so he killed their employer to do so. Afterwards, I took the credit for the assassination. Final result: Zabuza got lied to twice, abandoned a battle he was about to win, and lost any chance of getting paid. You can’t tell me that sounds like a conspiracy between him and me.

“You have to admit,” he added, “this is all much more plausible than the idea that a mere genin like me managed to infiltrate Gatō’s fortress and take out him and his huge army of bodyguards on my first ever C-rank mission.” And even though everybody in the room knew that Naruto was no ordinary genin, the last thing Danzō could do was point it out in his presence.

Danzō considered. “If this mission was such a triumph of manipulation on your part, Uzumaki, then why did you lie in your report?”

“Because...” Naruto allowed himself to look awkward, a mask of discomfort over a mask of confidence over feelings that were too complicated for either label. “Because I didn’t want to tell anyone I’d seduced an enemy ninja on my first serious mission. I mean, what would people think of me?”

“So that’s how it is,” the Hokage said. “This story is odd, but it certainly fits with all the information we have, including accounts from the other members of Team Seven about Haku’s strange behaviour throughout the battle. Submitting inaccurate mission reports is a disciplinary offence, for both of you,” he looked from Naruto to Kakashi-sensei, “but it is certainly not a tribunal matter.

“As for Haku, given that he has no connection to Leaf, and that his victim was an active enemy of Leaf at the time of the assassination, I don’t believe our laws have anything to say on the matter. If anything,” the Hokage gave an innocent smile, “perhaps we should send him a gift basket if we ever find a postal address to use.”

Naruto suppressed an enormous sigh of relief. He’d hoped that this would be the case. Either way, though, when it came down to it Haku was far from Leaf, location unknown, and more than able to defend himself with Zabuza’s help, while Kakashi-sensei was here and defenceless. Doing things this way was always going to be the right decision, even if it felt like planting a dagger in his first love’s back.

There was a pause as everyone waited for Danzō’s counterattack.

-o-

The Uzumaki child was doing well, better than he had expected. Yes, he would indeed make a very valuable tool, even if he _was_ a—no, no matter. Every shinobi had his flaws, and as long as they did not interfere with the mission they were easy enough to overlook. And if Hiruzen could make such effective use of the boy, how much more value might he have in the hands of a leader who acted rationally?

In a sense, that question had been the true objective of the exercise all along, the third layer of Danzō’s goals. He was already in the process of accomplishing it while poor, naive Hiruzen was still wrestling with the second layer, and the Uzumaki child, if he understood anything at all, was probably still on the first. It was why, in the end, Danzō would win. His opponents were always busy foiling the wrong plans.

Danzō returned his focus to the tribunal. Uzumaki’s story was good enough to pass initial inspection, and challenging any of its weaknesses would ultimately come down to external evidence—all of which was in Wave. That would mean stretching out the trial, which was the one thing Danzō could not permit.

The optimal scenario was to obtain the Uzumaki and the Uchiha in one swift stroke, simultaneously remove Hiruzen’s strongest piece, and present the whole thing to the rest of the world as a fait accompli. It would be a bold move, provoking the anger of many enemies and even of many allies. But there’d be precious little anyone could do about it after the fact, and the gain would be more than worth it. Fulfilling all three layers at once would make every expenditure it had taken to get this far seem trivial.

None of this was necessary, of course, for Danzō to achieve his _projected_ scenario, and this was what Hiruzen lacked the subtlety to grasp. The only thing Danzō actually needed to do at this point was make sure the trial concluded quickly.

Danzō had realised as soon as Team Seven was formed that it was only a matter of time before Hatake left himself open to attack. Wrangling talented fools was an art that took years to learn, and Hatake had only ever worked with professionals. There was no reason for Danzō to lay a trap—he was nothing if not a patient man, and incompetence was always its own undoing. No, all that was needed was for him to be ready.

The secret military tribunal was a card he’d prepared many years ago, against a time when the stakes were high enough to justify emptying the bank. It was to be a blitzkrieg, accomplishing Danzō’s objective before Hiruzen could marshal the resources to stop him. The record would show that Hatake had been lawfully convicted—it would be true in the most technical possible way, and there was no need for the final version of the text to contain inconvenient details. With Hatake swiftly executed, Hiruzen would be the only one left capable of disputing the truth of the matter. But the so-called Hokage had never had the stomach to confront Danzō in public, too mired in fears of a grand conflict that would tear the village apart. And even if he finally found his courage after all these years, he was not fool enough to risk that grand conflict for the sake of one already dead.

But everything would change if Danzō’s blitzkrieg faltered. This two-day period had been hard-earned. Some had to be bribed. Others, blackmailed. A few, immune to both, simply had to be distracted, whether by opportunity or by disaster. Even then, Hiruzen might have found some unexpected ally capable of disrupting Danzō’s plan. But the Hokage could not be seen to break the law, however questionable that law was, by revealing the existence of the tribunal to an outsider. The most he had been able to do was bring in Uzumaki, successfully concealing their communication (and thus his culpability) behind some contact so subtle it had been missed even by Root’s best shinobi.

This period of dominance would not last. With every additional day, the odds increased that somebody would notice. They would encounter the tribunal, not as a flawlessly manipulated record but as a live event, with all of Danzō’s stratagems laid bare, and they would righteously tear it to shreds. That was why Hatake had to fall today or not at all.

It was ever thus. Danzō knew from long, bitter experience that the deadliest shinobi in Leaf’s Bingo Book weren’t as much of a threat to village security as the occasional “ethically-minded” citizens who discovered what Root did in order to keep them safe every day.

-o-

“Thank you for your contribution to this tribunal, Uzumaki,” Danzō stated, the emotion in his voice completely gone once again. “Guards, take him away.”

“I’m not finished!” Fortunately, Naruto had long since mastered the art of not being dragged away by hostile adults. “I have more evidence to offer!”

The Hokage spoke up. “Michizane, Kuroi, please let the young man go.”

Not to be ungrateful, but Naruto wished the Hokage had said that to begin with. The two guards were apparently very single-minded people, and had continued to hold him tightly throughout his entire earlier testimony.

“Right.” Naruto reached for a scroll tucked into his belt. “I have here the testimony of the missing-nin Onigahara Tariki.” He threw the scroll to the startled clerk (who, however, was still a ninja, and managed to catch it). He was tempted to shout “Take that!” in the process, but decided not to push his luck.

Naruto looked for a change of expression on Danzō’s face, but apart from a slight deepening of the latter’s frown, detected nothing.

“Is this the best you have to offer, Uzumaki?” Danzō finally asked. “The mendacious ramblings of a missing-nin, as interrogated by a child fresh out of the Academy? Do not waste our time with pointless stabs in the dark.”

“Actually,” Naruto responded in a casual tone which he knew from experience to infuriate any authority figure attempting to chastise him, “if you examine the scroll, you’ll find the seals of two ranking ANBU interrogators, confirming that they attended the interrogation and can vouch for its adherence to procedure.” Naruto didn’t know what miracles Nao had performed in order to get a pair of ANBU specialists out of bed to work on an assignment of dubious legality in the middle of the night on zero notice, but he was aware that he now owed her his very immortal soul, his firstborn child, and enough favours to run a medium-sized informal economy.

The Hokage glanced at the clerk.

“Yes, sir, these all appear to be in order.”

“Then please read the testimony out in full.”

The clerk unrolled the scroll and turned red as he saw the contents. He coughed.

“Uh... Very well.

“It was way too fucking early in the morning for this shit...”

-o-

Tariki had never forgotten the first time he and Jiriki came back from the battlefield, clothes sodden with the blood of friends they’d failed to save. He had never forgotten the final lines of the poem read out by a cold-faced father at one of the funerals. “Leave tears of sorrow to the fallen. If you would see the cruelty of the world and weep, weep tears of rage.”

That was why even now, with his brother dead and himself captured by the Village Hidden in Hypocrisy, Tariki refused to feel anything but fury. Every fibre of his being strained to find an opportunity. He would escape. He would find allies. He would burn Leaf to the ground for taking away the last thing he had left.

The two Leaf mooks had taken him halfway across the valley for a piss, leaving the commanding officer alone with a kid who practically screamed “expendable”. If not for them, Tariki would happily have murdered his escorts—they thought him _helpless_ just because his hands were tied behind his back—but it would only take one cry for help to leave him with a fight he couldn’t win. So instead, he did what Jiriki would have done, and watched and listened, and waited for his chance.

“Sir, while the prisoner is out of hearing range, do you mind if I ask a question?”

Out of hearing range. A brat born after the war, with no idea of the true terror of a Mist shinobi. Hadn’t Jiriki’s killers _told_ these fools that the Demon Brothers’ ambush hadn’t relied on sight?

“Why do I always get the greenhorns? All right, Ichijō, hit me.”

“I was thinking… that missing-nin doesn’t look dangerous enough to need four guards. If Captain Hatake needs help, why can’t we send a couple of us with him at least partway?”

Sweet summer child, how have you lived this long?

“Ichijō, are you questioning Master Danzō’s orders?”

“No, sir, I just—”

“Who picked you up out of the trash after your family got killed in the Night of Tragedy and the rest of the world turned its back on you?”

“Master Danzō.”

“Who spared no expense in getting you food, and shelter, and training, asking for nothing in return except your loyalty?”

“Master Danzō.”

“Who took your worthless carcass and fashioned it into a precision tool capable of protecting the village?”

“Master Danzō.”

“And you would question Master Danzō’s orders?”

“Never, sir. It’s just... with my low combat potential, I’ve mostly been doing support work in the main compound, so I’m not used to how these missions work.”

“Master Danzō is the hidden hand that guides the village to safety and prosperity, and we are just one weapon in his arsenal. Does a weapon second-guess the hand that wields it?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Master Danzō has his reasons for making sure Team Seven doesn’t get any reinforcements, and if he wanted us to be an exception, he’d have said so. Are we clear?”

“Crystal, sir.”

-o-

Danzō’s expression hadn’t changed by the end of the reading, though all eyes were now on him.

The Hokage was the first to speak. “This testimony all but explicitly states that the four shinobi who conveyed the prisoner were Root members, and that they withheld vital information at your orders. What do you have to say?”

“Clearly, they are a rogue group,” Danzō said with a relaxed thoughtfulness, as if asked to speculate about tomorrow’s weather. “Their leader likely manipulated them into thinking they were carrying out my orders.”

“You heard their testimony in person earlier,” the Hokage observed. “How could you not have recognised members of your own organisation?”

“As I’m sure you know, Root members have no permanent names, and are assigned new ones periodically, typically when embarking on a new mission. The team leader violated protocol by assigning the group new names without my knowledge, so I could not recognise them. As for their faces, do you expect the head of a large organisation to know every one of his subordinates by sight?”

Naruto’s eyes narrowed. It was obvious, utterly obvious, that Danzō was lying. There was no possible way in which any of what he was saying could be true. And yet he didn’t have any evidence to prove it. All of this was an internal Root matter. Any records would be Root records, which Danzō could falsify or destroy. Any witnesses would be Root members, whom Danzō would be able to influence. Was he really going to get away with it, just like that?

“Have them thoroughly interrogated,” Danzō went on. “I feel certain that they will deny receiving any orders from me personally that would violate village law.”

The sheer casual confidence with which Danzō said it made something click in Naruto’s head. “You train all your ninja to give you plausible deniability, don’t you?”

“Nonsense, Uzumaki. I suggest you watch your tongue. A court of law is no place for accusations without evidence.” But behind the insulted tone, was there a glimpse of approval, of all things, in Danzō’s eyes? For some reason, that made Naruto feel more uncomfortable than if they’d been filled with hatred.

-o-

Danzō’s plan had accomplished every one of its core objectives. It was inconvenient to have to sacrifice those four shinobi—manpower was one of Root’s chief weaknesses, for a variety of reasons—but he’d selected them in full awareness of what to expect. They were four of Root’s weakest. Yes, they had been inculcated with the absolute loyalty that allowed them to sacrifice themselves on demand. But they had otherwise failed to kill their emotions as a true shinobi must, and that made them much less valuable than other, properly hardened, tools.

Doubtless, Hiruzen would be celebrating a great victory tonight. Never once would it occur to him that he had been fighting on a battlefield prepared to Danzō’s exact specifications, demonstrating exactly what tools he would use under given conditions, how he would use them, and what they were capable of. The knowledge Danzō had gained about Uzumaki alone was invaluable, once he finally found the time to sit back and analyse it.

With every battle Hiruzen won, he came closer to losing the war. For while Hiruzen had learned from Hashirama, the great leader, Danzō had learned from Tobirama, the great strategist.

-o-

“Who in cold hell designs an alarm clock you can sleep through?” Naruto ran at breakneck speed through the streets, various colourful swearwords picked up from Mizuki-sensei running through his head. After the tribunal, and the confession by the Root ninja, and the deliberations, and the final verdict, and the celebratory ramen, and the “debriefing” from the Hokage and Kakashi-sensei, and the paperwork necessary to get him off the hook for everything he’d done, he thought he’d just have a quick nap to take the edge off his exhaustion before the date with Hinata _and now he was late_.

“I’m sorry so sorry I didn’t mean to be late have you been waiting long I’m really sorry whoa.” By the end of the sentence Naruto had mentally slowed down enough to see Hinata rather than merely register her presence, and he was glad he had. She was wearing a pale lavender kimono which perfectly brought out her eyes (something the Hyūga had doubtless refined to a fine art over the centuries), decorated with a purple flower pattern. It wasn’t an ultra-formal kimono with the Hyūga house crest, which Naruto gathered was the kind of thing everyone from a proper clan owned for important occasions. Did that mean it was something she’d picked out herself? For Naruto, shopping for fashionable men’s clothes had turned out to be a test of will, and he was given to understand that by comparison, the women’s version involved bare hands and braziers of coals. Given what _he’d_ had to endure to find a decent outfit, it was amazing to see that shy, hesitant Hinata had not only survived but emerged triumphant.

(Sakura’s recommendation for him, incidentally, clove surprisingly close to Tsunami’s, being based around red and black, with a stylish and warm but painfully expensive jacket and a comma-shaped magatama pendant).

“No, I-I just got here. Are you OK?”

“Sorry,” Naruto panted. “Out of... breath. You... look amazing.”

Hinata went a pleasant shade of pink. “Th-Thank you. Um, you too.”

At this point the conversation stalled, as it occurred to Naruto that in all the chaos surrounding Kakashi-sensei’s tribunal, he hadn’t had a chance to plan what to _do_ on the date, and also that he didn’t know a single proper restaurant, since until recently he couldn’t afford to eat at any. Unfortunately, while Sakura’s date tips had been sparse (and mostly along the lines of “Whatever you do, don’t be yourself”), she’d been very clear about the unacceptability of ramen or barbecue shops.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, he decided that the simplest solution was probably the best. “Hey, do you happen to know any good places to eat?”

Hinata gave this some thought. “There’s a very nice restaurant I’ve been to with my family. It’s up on the hill two blocks down from the Aburame residence. Oh, but it’s very expensive, so maybe—”

“Don’t worry, I’m paying,” Naruto said with a confidence that wasn’t mirrored in his wallet. He could _probably_ afford a decent meal for two at this point, but his idea of restaurant prices was vague at best. All he knew was that they were high enough for him never to have gone before.

“Actually, I think I should pay,” Hinata unexpectedly objected.

“What? But you’re—” Naruto stopped himself just in time. He only had an approximate idea of what a social faux pas was, but he was pretty sure that saying “You’re poor” at this juncture would qualify.

Unfortunately, Hinata stood there waiting for him to finish his sentence.

“...really beautiful?”

Hinata blushed and looked down at her feet.

There were many things that caused Hinata to fall silent and avoid eye contact, including what seemed like innocent comments at the time. Mostly they were to be avoided. But this? This he liked. He made a note to do more of it in the future.

“So what were you really going to say?” Hinata finally asked just as Naruto thought he’d got away with it.

“Uh... well, I just thought it wasn’t fair to make you pay given that... um...”

Once again, Hinata waited as he trailed off. When no elaboration was forthcoming, she finished the sentence for him. “I don’t have much money? But you don’t either, Naruto. And I don’t have living expenses like you do.”

“But I have my A-rank mission pay,” Naruto said decisively. And if it wasn’t enough, he was going to have to get very creative, so for both their sakes he hoped it was.

“I’ve been saving up money from missions too,” Hinata countered.

“I eat much more than you do, so I should pay.”

“I’m the one who picked an expensive restaurant, so I should pay.”

“I asked you out, so I should pay.”

“Um, that argument doesn’t make sense.”

“Huh. So it doesn’t. But yours doesn’t either.”

There was a pause.

“Let’s split it,” they said more or less simultaneously.

“Lead the way.”

-o-

The Dreaming Dragon was, in all likelihood, the fanciest place Naruto had ever set foot in. The _waiters_ were dressed several orders of magnitude richer than he was. The floors were some kind of lacquered wood Naruto didn’t recognise, the walls were lined with gas lamps and beautiful paintings, and Naruto felt very sharply that he did not belong. Usually he would not have cared, indeed would have relished the opportunity to defy expectations, but tonight for some reason it was important.

The staff clearly recognised Hinata, and the man at the front desk gave her an enormous smile. “Lady Hinata! Always a pleasure to see you in our humble establishment. Are you dining alone tonight?”

Then he noticed Naruto. An initial look of disbelief changed smoothly to one of horror and disgust, as if he was seeing a tiger-sized cockroach crawling towards his kitchen. The smile reasserted itself, now looking as if it had been urgently glued on. “I’m terribly sorry if that ruffian is bothering you, Lady Hinata. I don’t know how he got in here. I’ll have someone throw him out at once.”

Naruto tensed, but before he could react, the temperature dropped several hundred degrees. Then an icy voice, a perfect crystal of cutting edges and disdain, rang out across the suddenly silent room.

“And who are _you_ to pass judgement on honoured guests of the Hyūga Clan, _commoner_?”

The man almost literally froze, not moving a muscle, his face white as a sheet.

Naruto felt a wave of panic crash over him. Discovered by an angry Hyūga elder at their first date? He wasn’t ready. He hadn’t thought through possible diplomatic approaches _or_ prepared anti-Byakugan combat tactics. What was he going to do? Where was the voice even coming from?

The unseen speaker continued, in tones of purest imperious contempt. “Now take us to your finest private room at once, and I may _consider_ not telling my father of the insult you’ve dealt to our clan.”

Wait, what?

The waiter, his movements shaky and erratic, stammered something incomprehensible by way of apology, and half-led half-fled them to a second-floor private room. After muttering something about menus, he ran away, leaving Naruto and Hinata alone with a table and a great open-balcony view of the village.

For a while, no one said anything. Naruto, for his part, simply did not know what to say. While his manga did in fact cover contingencies for if one’s date became demonically possessed upon reaching the restaurant, he didn’t have any sealing tags and he wasn’t entirely sure how to wield the Power of Love.

Eventually, Hinata spoke first, her voice shaking so badly it was impossible to imagine her as the same person who had just excoriated a grown man.

“Oh, I’m—I’m so sorry! Please forgive me! I know this was supposed to be a fun date, and now I’ve gone and ruined _everything_ , and if you want to call it off right now I’ll understand, and you don’t have to—”

“What are you talking about?!” Naruto exclaimed. “That was awesome! Scary, but awesome. I’ve never had anyone stand up for me like that before. So is that what you’re like when you’re angry?”

A bewildered Hinata wiped her eyes with her kimono sleeve. “You... mean that? You’re OK?”

“Sure!” Having got over the initial shock, Naruto was now mentally replaying the image of the waiter’s smug face turning ashen, and savouring every second.

“Oh.” Hinata seemed to relax a bit. “That’s.... that’s good. I’m sorry. I’ve never done that before. I mean, as the heir I was _trained_ in how to use the Voice, but I’ve never been able to do it properly. Except then I saw how he was treating you and... and I felt like I had to do something... and... are you really sure that was OK?”

“It was awesome,” Naruto repeated firmly. “And you know, if you went around being that assertive more of the time, I think—”

Naruto was interrupted as the door swung open and what appeared to be the entire staff of the restaurant, several dozen people, all poured in. A man in a luxurious black suit that made Naruto’s outfit look like kitchen rags slid unctuously to the front.

Before anyone could say anything, he fell to his knees and pressed his forehead on the ground. The rest of the staff did not hesitate to follow his lead.

“Lady Hinata, on behalf of the Dreaming Dragon, I most humbly beg your forgiveness for the unconscionable behaviour displayed towards you. Please, in your infinite generosity, overlook this unworthy act and find it in your heart to forgive us. Needless to say, we will not be charging you for this room or for your meal, and the lowly scum who dared insult your honour will be fired at once.”

Hinata opened her mouth, then hesitated. She looked to Naruto, as if to say, “You’re the victim, you decide.”

But Naruto didn’t know what to say. The right thing to do, the fair thing to do, would be to let him get fired. You shouldn’t be allowed to get away with treating people like that, pure and simple. At the same time, the merciful thing to do, and the kind of thing he imagined Hinata would do on her own, was to forgive the man. Any of the villagers would have done the same in his place—this one wasn’t worse than the rest just because he’d seized the obvious opportunity. Besides, what would Hinata think of him if he chose revenge instead of mercy?

Then again, they were dating (unless tonight went _really_ badly). Whatever his true self was, she’d find it out sooner or later. Did he want her to find out then that he’d been faking piety, or did he want to bet on her accepting what she would think of as his flaws?

So the ball was back in his court. What did _he_ want to do? Did he believe he could change this man’s rotten ways with one decision or the other? Frankly, no. The only lesson to be learned from this experience was “hide your prejudices if you risk offending someone powerful”, and that would be the waiter’s conclusion whether he was fired or not. Even if Naruto decided to spare him, there was no guarantee that the man would change, not with Hinata available as a much easier target of gratitude that wouldn’t require him to rethink his beliefs.

Damn it. How did you go about changing the world when it was so hard to believe that it could be changed in the first place?

And then, before Naruto could decide, it was too late. The restaurant staff filed out, shuffling backwards as if Hinata were an empress, and the pair were alone again.

-o-

_One order of “one of everything, except two of this, this, this and this” and another, more restrained order from Hinata later..._

“So I have to ask, what was up with that? I mean, I know the Hyūga Clan’s important, but seriously...”

“It’s been like that since Leaf was founded,” Hinata said. “How much do you remember from our history lessons at the Academy?”

Naruto wondered if he was supposed to give a concise or a detailed answer to an open-ended question like that. Back at the Academy, giving any answer that so much as showed he’d been listening would have been an act of appalling carelessness. But dates were for impressing your partner, right?

“If you mean going back to the very beginning... Well, you had the Warring Clans period, when all the ninja clans spent their time constantly fighting each other, partly in the process of hiring themselves out as mercenaries and spies, and partly because that’s what they’d always done. Then one day Hashirama of the Senju got fed up with that. He said he wanted to prove that different clans could live peacefully alongside one another, and alongside common people (who basically thought ninja were like demons—huge magic powers, know all the secrets of the world, be very, very respectful if you see one, but generally keep your distance if you want to live). And since the Senju were the strongest clan in this part of the world, he thought he had a good shot at pulling it off. Although personally, I think he was crazy to go to the Uchiha, and to Madara of all people, with his plan. I mean, his worst enemy? The leader of the _other_ strongest clan, who’d had a bitter rivalry with the Senju for generations? Really?”

Naruto glanced at Hinata as if to ask if that was what she’d meant, but she appeared to be listening curiously to his take on Leaf history (and also wrestling with a particularly recalcitrant grilled eel). So he continued.

“But by some miracle he did manage to bring Madara round to his way of thinking, and they signed the First Waterfall Accords at the Valley of the End. Obviously, it wasn’t called that back then. Anyway, everyone knows the Accords—one village, one family. No battles, no spying, no theft. All that stuff. Then they brought in all the other clans, and went to the daimyo of the Fire Country and they signed the Second Waterfall Accords. It was a pretty sweet deal for both sides—the clans got a huge area of uninhabited forest to rule as a semi-autonomous region, while the daimyo got all the Fire Country clans that mattered officially recognising his legitimacy, swearing never to take up arms against the Fire Country or interfere with its politics, and committing to defend it against all other ninja in times of war. And frankly, what else was the daimyo going to do? Say no and alienate an alliance of all the most powerful ninja in his territory? Who would then either take his territory anyway or offer the same deal to one of his neighbours? I don’t think so.

“Because back then everyone was still thinking of the village almost as a clan of clans, they decided it needed a single leader. There was a lot of politicking and trickery and blackmail, and the knives nearly came out a few times, and in the end they decided that the only way to get a leader _every_ clan accepted was a straightforward vote. Only pretty much everyone, including most of the Uchiha, voted for Hashirama. Which unsurprisingly made Madara furious. He declared he’d been betrayed, made his big speech about the blind leading the blind, and left the village for good. So Hashirama became the world’s first Kage and Madara became the world’s first missing-nin. And, well, we all know how that played out in the end.”

Hinata nodded. “You really are very skilled, Naruto. I was watching closely, and I was so sure you were asleep for most of those lessons. Well, apart from the bits where you were, um, being conspicuous. But would you mind going back to the part where the Founders were gathering the clans? How did they do it?”

Naruto couldn’t help thinking that Hinata was mirroring his own didactic approach from many of their training sessions. He wondered how he should feel about that. “Promises, concessions, and dark hints about what would happen if they were the only clan to be left outside this huge alliance, mainly. I guess they went for the hardest first, because they had to promise the Hyūga the moon before they’d join. Then they sought out a bunch of existing alliances, like the Ino-Shika-Chō guys, and I think the Aburame Clan actually volunteered—they were big on unity, but not strong enough to lead an alliance themselves. I could list a bunch of others, but...”

“Do you know why they started with the Hyūga?”

Naruto shook his head. “I’ve always wondered. I know you guys have the Byakugan, but... well, no offense, but it doesn’t really seem like it’s in the same league as the Wood Element or the Sharingan.”

“Um, please make sure you don’t say that when you meet my family,” Hinata said.

Her hands froze over her salad. “I mean _if_ you meet my family! I mean, not that I don’t _want_ you to—”

She blushed and looked down at her chopsticks. It took a few seconds before she looked up again.

“Just please be careful, Naruto. It’s a sore spot with the older generation, especially the Sharingan.”

She paused. “People don’t realise it because it’s not something you can see easily, but the Hyūga are amazing at intelligence gathering. It’s the Byakugan’s greatest strength, and my clan was working to make the most of it long before we developed the Gentle Fist. This is a huge generalisation, but if the Senju were the best warriors and the Uchiha were the best ninjutsu users, then the Hyūga were the best spies. It’s how we survived even though we were always a fairly small clan surrounded by combat heavyweights. It’s also why Leaf’s founders went to such lengths to bring us in even though we’ve always been a little... well, standoffish.

“Sorry,” she stopped. “I’m not boring you?”

“No way,” Naruto grinned. “This is good stuff.”

“I know this is a bit, um, arrogant coming from a Hyūga, but Leaf history makes much more sense when you see it in terms of three founding clans rather than two. The Hyūga balanced what could have been a constant power struggle between the Senju and the Uchiha, who had generations of enmity to work through. That’s why in the history books, you sometimes see references to Leaf’s Three Noble Clans.”

“When you say Leaf history makes much more sense...” Naruto trailed off questioningly.

“For example, think about what happened to the Senju.”

“Hashirama encouraged them all to intermarry with other clans to strengthen ties. Except the Uchiha, obviously. The bloodline got so diluted they pretty much don’t exist as a clan anymore. The First Hokage was the last Senju who could even use the Wood Element.”

“Right. So why didn’t the Uchiha take over when that happened?”

“Huh,” Naruto frowned. “I never thought of it like that.”

“This isn’t all my own thinking,” Hinata admitted a little sheepishly. “I had tutors once.”

Naruto shrugged. “Once you know something, it’s yours to keep.”

Hinata didn’t argue the point. “The Second could see the big conflict coming, so he chose someone who wasn’t from _any_ important clan to be the Third. The Uchiha didn’t like the Third because they associated him with the Senju, and the Hyūga didn’t like him because the clan seniors felt he wasn’t giving them enough respect (although they feel like that about everybody, including other Hyūga). But he had legitimacy from being the chosen heir of the Senju, and was, I mean is, a great Hokage, so they accepted him eventually.”

“Right. And I guess you’re saying he chose the Fourth on the same principle? Because the last Namikaze,” Naruto’s voice trembled a little as he said that, “was a neutral party everybody could accept?”

“Yes. Obviously, at the time the Hyūga and the Uchiha were both putting pressure on the Third to choose a successor from their clan, so I guess having someone as amazing as the Fourth turn up was an unbelievable stroke of luck. The Fourth was talented _and_ charismatic _and_ a war hero, so it wasn’t as hard to get him accepted.”

“Only it didn’t work.” Because of you, Naruto added silently, thinking at the Fox.

“No,” Hinata agreed. “And after the Fourth died and the old village got destroyed, the balance started to fall apart. For a while, people stopped believing in the Hokage, so the Third couldn’t control the clans as well. And at the same time, both the Hyūga and the Uchiha believed they deserved a bigger share of power, so they tried to make that happen during the reconstruction. Apparently, things got really bad.”

“Hang on,” Naruto reached the inevitable conclusion. “So if the Hyūga and the Uchiha were fighting for dominance all that time, what happened after the Uchiha Massacre?”

“Um.” Hinata hesitated. “I don’t think I can really talk about that so much. Everything I’ve said is history, that’s fine, but there are things about Hyūga politics that I’ve only been taught because I’m the heir, and I’m not supposed to discuss them with outsiders.”

Naruto took a bite of something unidentifiably exotic as he considered.

“No, don’t worry, I think I can put the pieces together on my own. The Uchiha are gone. But the Hyūga aren’t in power. So someone’s holding them back. I guess the Hokage, though it could be a secret alliance of other clans. Probably the Hokage, though, because you can’t fight a political battle without a public face, and there’s no one else publically facing the Hyūga. That means when he retires, there’s going to be a lot more pressure than before to choose a Hyūga successor, with nothing to counter it.

“Man, this doesn’t look good. If he picks a neutral successor, the Hyūga will go on the warpath, because they’ve been waiting forever to get into power, and now they’re supposed to be the only option. But if he picks a Hyūga, that’s practically a dictatorship, because for the first time there won’t be anyone to balance their power. I can’t see any of the other clans being happy with that. And he _has_ to pick a successor himself, because if he doesn’t, there’ll be a legitimacy crisis, like at the start of _War of the Tengu_ , and then it’s civil war for sure. Hang on...” a horrific thought occurred to Naruto, “what about Sasuke? He’s an Uchiha, in fact, _the_ Uchiha. How does he fit into all this?”

“Well,” Hinata said after a moment’s thought, notably not denying Naruto’s chain of logic, “I think if the Third chose him as his successor, _and_ he had the legitimacy of being an Uchiha, _and_ he was as amazing as the Fourth, _and_ he had enough popular support, the Hyūga could accept him as Hokage. But it’s a moot point. Sasuke is very talented, but he’s not going to be Kage-level by the time the Third finally retires.”

“At which point,” Naruto concluded, “all the cold hells are going to break loose.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Naruto broke the gloomy silence. “I know dates are supposed to be, uh, romantic and stuff, and I realise talking about village politics is way on the other end of the spectrum.”

Hinata shook her head. “I don’t mind. I’ve... um... missed having someone to talk to about these things. And... I think...”

Hinata trailed off and started fidgeting, her body language somehow suggesting that she was trying to hide without moving in any way.

Naruto waited—part curiosity, part revenge for being forced to finish his faux pas sentence earlier.

“I think... this is romantic enough,” Hinata finally said very quietly, looking at Naruto across the table.

For once, the silence Naruto found himself in wasn’t uncomfortable. He looked into Hinata’s eyes, returning her gaze.

Clichés from the girly romance manga he definitely never read ran through his mind, and suddenly he realised how none of them fit. Hinata’s eyes weren’t windows to her soul. He could not stare into their dark abyss to try and glimpse her true self, or watch her pupils widen to convey the depth of her interest. In fact, he doubted she even _had_ pupils behind the uniform almost-white surfaces that marked Byakugan-adapted eyes.

What was it like, he wondered, to look at the world from the other side of those barriers? What was it like to see without anyone else knowing what you were looking at, to remain opaque even as everyone else became transparent? Was it the Byakugan itself that made Hinata fade into the background, always watching, never seen?

Yet here and now he could feel it, Hinata’s completely focused attention, as if it were a ray of light shining directly at him. Why him? Why would someone who could see the whole world just by spending a little chakra choose to forgo all that, and look only at someone like him?

And suddenly it clicked. He knew this, Naruto realised, this hunger for knowledge that shut everything else out. He’d felt it often enough, though never directed at a person like this. And even if he couldn’t understand why, he couldn’t deny the purity and intensity of those feelings any more than he could deny the warmth he felt standing in a sunbeam.

And then it clicked again. Naruto felt a desire he had never before put together out of the stray pieces of thought and emotion drifting around inside him. _He_ wanted to know _her_ , to see past the impenetrable wall of her eyes, to reach through all the layers of fear and shyness and fragility and fully comprehend the complex inner world he had only glimpsed up until now. To know her, so fully and deeply and completely that the barriers between them broke down and—

With a start, Naruto backed off, looking away from Hinata as he felt himself touch depths of emotion that were somehow beyond his power to handle. What had just happened? This hadn’t been in any of the manga.

In his confusion, he felt almost grateful as the spell was broken by the arrival of a waiter.

 

“Lady Hinata, would you and... your companion... like to see the dessert menu?”

“Yes, please!” Hinata nodded vigorously, much like someone who’d also felt more emotion than they’d been prepared for, and now urgently wanted to restore normality.

Naruto barely glanced at his menu. The “one of everything” policy had served him well so far, and he saw no need to abandon it.

Hinata was unsurprisingly more selective. She did start to say something about spoons to the waiter when Naruto clarified that yes, he wanted the large rather than medium Tower of Trials ice cream, but ultimately went bright red and fell silent.

“So, um, Naruto, did you say earlier that you had A-rank mission pay? I thought you were on a C-rank mission. Did something happen?”

“Well, I discovered that I’m possibly gay, in which case I guess you and me dating doesn’t have a future, and I also now have unresolved feelings for another boy. Plus it turns out that there’s a terrifying monster living inside me which can take over my body and go on murderous rampages. But other than that, no, nothing special.”

Naruto emphatically did _not_ say this, but it certainly ran through his head. What was he supposed to tell Hinata? On the one hand, any one of those revelations was a humongous bundle of explosive tags which you did not drop on someone on a first date, while the full set would probably be the Kyubey to the Leaf Village of his romantic prospects.

On the other hand, Naruto knew his classics, and was thus aware that dishonesty and miscommunication accounted for ninety percent of relationship disasters (with the remainder mainly involving alien or supernatural intervention), and there was no possible scenario in which lying to Hinata about stuff this important right off the bat was likely to end well. It was, after all, a law of nature that terrible secrets always came out at the worst possible time (see “finding out someone is your mortal enemy right after you and he fall in love”).

Fortunately, in the specific case of Hinata, a pre-existing solution presented itself.

“Uh, can we put that on the ‘for another time’ list? Sorry.”

Hinata looked surprised, but nodded.

“Instead,” Naruto sought a safer conversation topic, “how about you tell me about all the village stuff I missed. Anything interesting happen?”

“Well,” Hinata smiled, “there was the incident where Kiba somehow got the idea that when a girl beats you up, it means she, um, likes you. And then he met Ino on a bad day...”

 

“...and now we know that trying to build a suspension bridge off the Second Hokage’s head carving is a very bad idea,” Hinata concluded as they headed out of the restaurant.

“Oh, man! I wish I could’ve seen his face!” Naruto laughed.

Hinata laughed too. Then she and Naruto looked at each other. It was time to part ways.

But just having a restaurant meal for a first date somehow felt too tame for an event organised by Uzumaki Naruto himself. And Hinata’s story _had_ given him an idea….

“Hey, Hinata, come with me. There’s something I want to show you,” he said.

“Um... OK.”

“This way! Also, Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

The clones scattered into the darkness, their purpose a mystery to a visibly confused Hinata.

Naruto led Hinata to the edge of the village, the side opposite the Hokage Monument. It was an unremarkable place, with only a few fields filling the emptiness before the near-vertical crater wall. There was nothing apparent to commend it for dating purposes except perhaps the degree of privacy granted by its remoteness.

“Here we are. Could you close your eyes? And keep your Byakugan off?”

Hinata hesitated, a look of discomfort on her face. At first Naruto wondered if she wasn’t willing to trust him, but then a more charitable explanation occurred to him. Hinata was a Hyūga, with the ability to see perfectly even in the dark or through closed eyelids. Actual blindness would be much more alien to her than to most people.

Realising this, Naruto was grateful when she finally closed her eyes, though he wasn’t sure why she flinched as he took her hand and started to lead her onwards.

-o-

“OK, you can open your eyes now.”

Hinata did. To her surprise, she could see the entire village in front of her, a sea of multicoloured lights, almost like a starlit sky seen from above. But she could also see the Hokage Monument, with its carved faces gazing at her from across the crater. Where were they? They weren’t on the edge of the crater, an area of hostile terrain and countless booby-traps set to deter intruders. They were within the village boundaries, yet somewhere very high up—the only view like this she knew was from the tops of the Hokage head carvings, a normally off-limits area where they’d been taken once as Academy students.

She let herself take in the view. She was also keenly aware that Naruto was still holding her hand, in a warm, solid grip that made part of her melt. He relaxed it after a few seconds, as if trying to let go. But although Hinata doubted she’d have the courage to take his hand on her own initiative, she did at least manage to hold on to it when it was already there. After a second’s hesitation his hand tightened around hers again.

“Where are we?” she finally asked.

“You can use your Byakugan now. Take a look.”

She did. But the first thing she focused on was his chakra. It was more faint than normal, divided among all those shadow clones somewhere out in the darkness, and unusually concentrated in the hand with which he was holding hers. Chakra followed attention, so did that mean...? Hinata giggled on the inside. All that time holding her hand as he led her here, and he’d only _just_ realised that they were _holding hands_ , like a couple? Naruto was special, wonderful, unique, but in just a few ways he could be a little bit dense.

Even so, she envied his composure. Here they were, on their first date, alone in mysterious yet definitely romantic surroundings, and somehow _he_ wasn’t feeling pulled in every direction by a dozen different emotions. _He_ didn’t have to keep stopping to remind himself that this wasn’t yet another of those dreams that felt joyful to experience and agonising to wake up from. _He_ didn’t have to keep asking himself whether he really deserved to be here, when his partner was worthy of so much more.

Finally, she turned her conscious attention to the terrain around them—and laughed out loud in surprise. They were standing not on rock, but on a complex interlocking assembly of transformed shadow clones. The exact shape was too complicated for her to grasp, but it was attached to the near-vertical crater wall, and it fit together into a giant faux-archaic carving of Naruto’s head, Hokage-style. It was just so... so _Naruto_ to do something like that. She wondered if he’d leave it there until he went to sleep and his clones vanished, just to provoke outrage in anyone who happened to spot it in the dark.

“Glad you like it,” Naruto commented. “I wanted you to be the first to know—well, outside Team Seven and the entire Country of the Wave, anyway.”

“Know what?” Hinata asked.

“I’ve decided. I’m going to become Hokage. I will surpass all the Hokage who came before me, and I will change the world.”

It should have sounded silly, just another instance of Naruto pretending to be a manga protagonist for his own amusement. But this time Hinata couldn’t hear the traces of irony that normally accompanied Naruto’s grand declarations. Nor was he striking one of his many dramatic poses. The one thing she did see was the way his chakra burned just a little more brightly as he spoke. _We name it “resolve”, Daughter. It is a light that shines through the endless human weakness that surrounds us, and reminds us that there is a sun waiting somewhere beyond the clouds._

Hinata smiled. “I think you can do it, Naruto. I really do.”

Naruto beamed. “Thank you.”

Then he stepped forward a little, pulling her towards the edge of the “carving”.

“It’s not the main reason I brought you here, though. I had to kind of guess the range of your Byakugan, but... well... try and pick out my clones down in the village. They’ll be flaring their chakra as much as they can to make it easier.”

Hinata tried. It was harder than Naruto probably realised, with the sheer number of people she could see when she extended her range, but between the flaring, the high vantage point that meant she didn’t have to filter out as many obstacles, her intimate familiarity with Naruto’s chakra, and the fact that at this time of night people who weren’t Naruto tended to be in predictable locations (mostly home and asleep), she finally managed it.

It stunned her how many there were, yet another reminder of Naruto’s incredible chakra control. Once she thought she’d found the last one, she broadened her focus again, letting herself see them all at once. The result took her breath away.

The entire surface of the village, as far as she could see, was illuminated by two traditional characters written in shadow clone formation. They were the first ones she’d learned to read as a child: “The Sun Beyond”, read as “Hyūga” since time immemorial.

But they also had another, gentler, reading, one of which Naruto was doubtless aware: “Hinata”, “Where the Sun Shines”, the reading once favoured by her mother. As much as anything else, it had been a wish, and Hinata had spent most of her life afraid that she would never fulfil it. She remembered feeling a guilty sort of relief when she learned that everyone else in her age group was already writing their names in the simpler modern script, meaning that she could too, that she could treat her name as just a set of syllables.

Now, those same two characters blazed before her eyes, written for Hinata and not for Hyūga, written by someone who had promised to help her become the person she wanted to be. Written by someone who thought nothing of writing her a message several miles in size on the spur of the moment, just to make her happy. Honestly, the fact that the whole thing looked so beautiful was almost an afterthought.

After some time, Naruto stepped around in front of her, his image now overlapping the vista below, and took her other hand.

“It’s right there in front of everyone in the village, and you’re the only one who can see it. Just like you did with me.” He smiled. “Thank you, Hinata. Thank you for being the one person to see me as I really am, and for accepting what you see.”

He took a deep breath. “I know I don’t always get people as well as I think I do, and I know sometimes I can barely see past the end of my own nose, but I’d like to see you for who you are too. I want to learn to see and understand and accept all of you, every last bit without exception. If... if that’s OK with you, I mean.”

Hinata didn’t answer. In fact, she couldn’t. Instead, in a gesture of unthinking boldness that would mortify her when she recalled it the next day, she stepped forward and threw her arms around Naruto’s neck, holding him in a tight hug. This... this was even better than it was in her daydreams.

After a few seconds, Naruto tentatively put his arms around her waist.

They stood like that for a long time.


	14. Chapter 14

Today was a very important day for Hinata. This day only came once in someone’s life, and there were those who considered it to be the point at which one stopped being a child and became a woman (though typically one would be a bit older at this point, and more experienced). She was excited, and anxious, and wished there’d been more she could do to prepare. But she was here now, she trusted Naruto as much as anyone in the world, and if everything went well, this day would mark a permanent change in their relationship.

Before she’d started getting to know Naruto, she’d always assumed that she’d be doing this with Kurenai-sensei, in accordance with unspoken but near-universal ninja tradition. Though she’d thought it would be years before she had the confidence, or perhaps that it would never happen at all. She certainly wouldn’t have expected to find herself here at the age of twelve, in a remote corner of the little-used Seventh Training Grounds, with her Byakugan on to make sure of their privacy, and Naruto lying on the ground in front of her looking rather stunned. (She’d tried to be as gentle as possible, but there were some things you just couldn’t _do_ gently, and he himself had insisted that she not hold back.)

Yes, this was the day Hinata presented her master with her first original technique.

A couple of seconds later, Naruto picked himself up off the ground, a little unsteadily. “Can you show me again, in slow motion this time?”

Hinata obliged. Her open-palm strike went for his solar plexus. Then, at the last second, her arm jerked back with unnatural speed, and instantly came in again, stopping just beneath his chin.

“Gotcha. So this is what you’ve been working on, is it?”

Hinata nodded. She’d practised it over and over before this meeting, but she’d still been afraid up to the last second that it would have some incredibly obvious flaw or counter that would make Naruto stop her before she’d even finished demonstrating. Now, she was feeling flushed with success.

“I was reading,” she explained, “about how many of the oldest martial arts styles are supposed to imitate the movement of predators, and it made me wonder why there were so few based on prey. I think people underestimate how much effort a prey animal puts into surviving when it’s always surrounded by bigger and stronger things that want to eat it.”

“I see. So how does that translate into an unblockable death strike?”

“Well,” Hinata went through the motions again as she explained, showing the way it could be adapted to strike at different points, “it’s about turning escape into an offensive move. You project chakra from your palm as if you were doing water walking or tree walking, only you do it as soon as the other person starts blocking your attack, and you do it in a sharp burst. Your arm snaps back, and now you’re in the starting position for the real attack while they’re still in the middle of blocking your feint. Unless they’re literally twice as fast as you, they’ve got no hope of defending.”

“Nice!”

Naruto’s satisfaction washed over Hinata like a warm glow (in addition to the existing warm glow that had lasted ever since the date and showed no sign of going away).

“All right, let me try it myself,” he said. “Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

As Naruto practised against Hinata, a small army of shadow clones did the same thing in pairs around them. Every few seconds, one would disappear, and the pairings would adjust, until finally there was just one shadow clone left, who summarily dispelled himself.

“That should be enough,” Naruto announced. “I do like the idea, but I’m afraid it’s an incomplete technique. You can’t use it.”

And there it was. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Way too much strain on the elbow, or any joint that has to take the impact of snapping back. If you did this on a regular basis, you’d have severe joint problems pretty soon. I bet that’s why the Hyūga don’t already use it, what with pure chakra emission being your thing and all.”

Hinata’s good mood vanished as if it had never been. Of course she wouldn’t be an inventor like Naruto after a few short months. Who had she thought she was kidding? How had she even missed such an obvious weakness, when as a Hyūga she probably knew more anatomy than most chūnin? And he must have had such high expectations of her, and now she’d let him down, and managed to simultaneously disappoint her master _and_ embarrass herself in front of her new boyfriend, and maybe she should just leave now and not waste any more of his time...

Some of this must have shown on her face.

“No, no, look, it’s all right to invent incomplete techniques!” Naruto told her, waving his hands in a slightly panicked fashion. “What matters is that you keep trying, and... and don’t give up, and learn from your mistakes, and...” From Naruto’s expression, he was as aware as she was of how reassuring those platitudes didn’t sound.

“Here, I’ll give you an example,” he changed tack. “Do you remember being taught the Rule of Stability when we learned the Substitution Technique?”

The ABCs of ninjutsu, at least, were something even she couldn’t get wrong. “Never use an unstable substance such as a liquid or gas when anchoring yourself in real space.”

“OK, so I never got taught that.”

Hinata’s mouth dropped open.

Naruto shrugged. “I’d broken Kataoka-sensei’s niece’s nose in a fight the previous day, and I think he was still a bit freaked out. So he arranged it so I got taught it on my own, and ‘forgot’ to teach me a couple of the essential principles. It’s the kind of thing that happened when I was at the Academy.”

Hinata was still giving him an incredulous look. “But... But if you break the Rule of Stability, you explode, or your body gets lost in phase space, or _something_ terrible happens to you!”

There was a pause.

“Are you sure it wasn’t an accident?” she asked, not so much doubting Naruto’s account as requesting reassurance she already knew she wasn’t going to get.

“Yeah,” Naruto gave her a wry look, “just like when we were learning about explosive tags and someone ‘accidentally’ happened to give me a real set instead of replicas. Would you believe there was a time I thought _everyone_ went through this sort of thing, like the Academy was culling people who were too careless to be ninja?”

Hinata’s brain was frozen. Naruto seemed to be describing some completely alien parallel universe. She couldn’t imagine living in a world where teachers tried to kill their pupils; it was like that dystopian novel where instead of being reformed, the Village Hidden in Bloody Mist had conquered the entire continent (and after reading twenty pages, Hinata had decided never to trust Shino’s book recommendations again). It was what you got when you went out of your way to write grimdark, not something that happened right here in everyday life.

She tried to think of something to say, and failed. Her mind was completely blank. Naruto wouldn’t lie about something like this; it wouldn’t make any sense. And it was horribly consistent with the various comments he’d previously made about his childhood. Except she couldn’t picture stern yet kindly Kataoka-sensei (who’d always had a soft spot for her) as some kind of cold-blooded murderer of children.

She tried hard to calm herself. The world she lived in had turned out not to be the world she knew. What did you do when the ground beneath your feet disappeared? What other foundations of her life might turn out to be lies?

However, Naruto went on, oblivious to her distressed state (or, the low-self-esteem voice in the depths of her mind whispered, simply unwilling to deal with it).

“That’s why when I got taught the Substitution Technique, the first thing I did was sit down and try to think through the obvious failure modes. It didn’t take me long to realise that if you could really Substitute with anything, people would be Substituting with air all the time, and there’d be no need for things like the Body Flicker Technique. So I knew right then that I hadn’t been taught the whole thing.

“But long story short, I filled in the gaps as best I could from books and copying the other kids and pretending I was so dumb they had no choice but to correct me. And obviously I didn’t dare experiment with the incomplete version of the technique until later, when I had clones to do it with. All things considered, I really wish they’d taught us the Clone Technique right at the beginning. It would’ve made my life a lot easier.”

Naruto turned to look directly at Hinata, his voice rising a little. “But the point is, there’s something I discovered only because I knew an incomplete technique. Wait till you get a load of this!”

He frowned. “It’s probably a very big deal, though, so it needs to stay an absolute secret.”

Hinata nodded, curiosity temporarily distracting her from her inner turmoil. “I promise.”

“Great. Then use your Byakugan one more time to make sure no one’s watching.”

A quick scan of the area later, Hinata nodded again.

With a grin, Naruto summoned several ordinary clones—not shadow clones, Hinata noticed, which was unusual for him. With that effortless synchronisation unique to clones, they began forming seals, familiar and yet somehow slightly off.

“Uzumaki-style Ninjutsu: Dimensional Anchor Technique!”

Hinata blinked. Her Byakugan was still on, and suddenly she could see that a large section of the clearing in front of her was filled with a faint mist of Naruto’s chakra. But it wasn’t moulded into elemental chakra or anything, and try as she might, she couldn’t see what the advantage was of creating clones only to make them commit suicide. It didn’t help her concentration that, according to Naruto, someone she trusted had intended to turn _him_ into mist like that.

“Awesome, isn’t it?” Naruto beamed at her. “I’ve checked around, and I haven’t been able to find a single existing technique for efficiently spreading your own chakra over a large three-dimensional area. All the techniques I’ve heard of are about transforming it into something else, or charging it with special properties, or infusing it into objects or whatever. Even the Hyūga stuff you’ve shown me is about projecting small bits of chakra with pinpoint precision rather than anything like this.”

“Isn’t that because neutral chakra doesn’t do anything on its own?”

Naruto’s grin got slightly wider. “And that’s where you’d be wrong. Go on, see if you can figure it out.”

Hinata tried. In addition to being an instruction from Naruto, it was an excuse to postpone having to turn her worldview upside down. Plus, she’d done little but read in the library during the couple of months after the... misunderstanding, and her understanding of general ninjutsu theory had grown fairly solid.

She’d watched his clones use the incomplete Substitution Technique, and then vanish as chakra burst into existence elsewhere. Based on what Naruto had said, they’d been violating the Rule of Stability, so presumably they were trying to anchor to thin air instead of a solid like the classic log. Which meant that when the chakra reached its destination, it tried to assume the unstable pattern of the air, failed, and dispersed into the surrounding environment. Without a stable anchor to come back to, the clones would either remain trapped in phase space forever, or they would come back in pieces, though she wasn’t sure what made the difference.

If you were trying to disperse chakra across an area, why do it in this roundabout way instead of simply making clones and letting them pop?

As she pondered Naruto’s chakra, she realised that it still wasn’t fading away. Normally chakra from destroyed clones vanished almost instantaneously. Naruto wasn’t adding any more chakra, or indeed doing anything at all, and there was nothing special about this clearing, so something about the chakra itself was unusual.

Hinata focused her Byakugan. Observing chakra flow on the finest scales was hard, much harder than mustering the level of concentration needed to follow it through a human body, but her father had been clear that someone unable to maintain flawless one-point focus could hardly be called a Hyūga at all, never mind an heir. With this hard-earned ability, Hinata could now see that the chakra was sort of... pulling itself together, not enough to counter its natural tendency to drift apart, but enough to slow the process down significantly. Almost as if it was intelligent.

Which, of course, it was. It possessed no apparent will separate from its master’s, and did not respond to any attempts at communication, but this intelligence was the reason that mere hand motions and visualisation were sufficient to bring forth effects that even the most cutting-edge commoner science couldn’t begin to replicate. The academically dominant Mechanical Theory of Ninjutsu in fact suggested that the Sage of Six Paths had invented ninjutsu as a user interface to allow human beings to give instructions to chakra, like clone AI programming for the very lifeforce that animated all living things.

In short, Naruto’s chakra, now fully separate from him, was still following the last instructions it had received from the incomplete Substitution Technique, namely to form a stable anchor at a given location. The next question, naturally, was what this accomplished.

Hinata risked a glance at Naruto, who appeared to be giving her a measuring look. The sudden sharp awareness that this was a test (how had she not realised earlier?) doubled her heart rate. Now she _had_ to get this right, and the faster the better.

He’d called it the Dimensional Anchor Technique. What did that mean? It didn’t mean he was anchoring one dimension to another (which wasn’t even a coherent concept), or that he was anchoring a location in one to a location in another (because he was explicitly _failing_ to create a working anchor). Was he anchoring an object from moving _between_ dimensions? But you couldn’t do that with a D-rank technique. The laws of physics explicitly permitted space-time ninjutsu, and altering them even in a small area took advanced sealing techniques; a genin doing it would be like having Tora the cat perform Kiba’s Beastman Clone Transformation. Although this _was_ Naruto she was dealing with...

While Naruto still hadn’t told her about his A-rank mission, the rumours were beginning to spread. Hinata had now been informed that, among other things, Naruto had single-handedly killed the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen and their leader, the Heir of the Serpent Lord (throwing mystics across the world into confusion, since according to prophecy the Heir had been supposed to slay the Lightbringer in the Battle of the End and thereby cast the world into darkness), had saved Captain Kakashi’s life through an epic dance-off with the God of Death, and had seduced the Queen of Wave (at this point Hinata had felt inexplicably compelled to run to the nearest atlas, which informed her that Wave hadn’t been a monarchy for three hundred years). At least half of them had probably been started by Naruto himself, but this only made her wonder more about the other half.

Captain Kakashi wasn’t helping, as for reasons best known to himself he’d chosen to answer all queries with a completely deadpan “All rumours regarding Uzumaki Naruto are one hundred percent true; all of them. And yes, he _is_ the reincarnation of the First Hokage _and_ Uchiha Madara _and_ General Chaos.”

Naruto was still looking at her, still expecting something. She couldn’t rely on her assumptions, that much was clear. But how else was she going to work this out, with as little information as she possessed?

She took a deep breath. No, they’d been over this. Don’t propose solutions until you’d thought about it for five clock minutes (which was an excruciatingly long time to have to sit still while Naruto watched you, not that he seemed to realise).

But once she’d started looking for things that weren’t solutions, it didn’t take long for her to think of the question she should have asked from the beginning. Naruto _was_ a genius, and some of those rumours might even be true, but he was still only human. How had _he_ figured out what the incomplete Substitution Technique was good for?

-o-

Around the same time, Sasuke was wandering the streets of Leaf, meditating on the ubiquity of weakness and betrayal, and how it had come to be that he alone was aware of the true, twisted nature of the world. He never reached an answer, however, as his senses suddenly alerted him to something out of place.

The girl walking a few metres in front of him was wearing a folded battle fan on her back. Not a hand fan, either, but one of the full-sized weapons of war that had not been seen in Leaf for many decades, after Uchiha Madara’s specialisation in that weapon had linked it to vanity and arrogance in the public mind. Of course, Madara had only been following an earlier tradition: the Uchiha clan symbol had, for all of recorded history, been the Fan That Feeds the Fire, and indeed “Uchiha” itself was a corruption of an ancient word for “fan”. As such, Sasuke made it a point of pride to know all there was to be known about that particular weapon. This specific fan type would not be particularly effective in the Fire Country, where attempts to gather great winds were impeded by the endless forest, but in the flat deserts of the neighbouring Wind Country (where Leaf’s ally Hidden Sand was based), one who mastered it would be lethal indeed.

His curiosity piqued, Sasuke looked more carefully. The girl, a blonde, was the leftmost of a party of three, each carrying something on their back. In the middle was a shorter, red-headed boy with an oversized gourd, while on the right, a tall shape of indeterminate gender (from the back, at least) wore a full-body black suit and carried a strange-looking cocoon of bandages. Their equipment and their body language clearly said “ninja with a purpose”; but what would Hidden Sand be doing _here_?

Not that he was going to strike up any sort of conversation with them, of course. That was the kind of thing _Naruto_ would do, inflicting his presence on others with no sense of when he was or wasn’t wanted. No, Sasuke was just going to—

Slam.

Some kid apparently hadn’t been looking where he was going, and had charged straight past Sasuke and into the red-haired boy in the middle of the ninja group. The sequence of events that followed was surreal.

The redhead didn’t seem at all offended. Instead, he turned around and looked down at the kid (Sasuke now recognised him as the Hokage’s loser grandson, Konohamaru) with a gentle, contemplative expression, as if trying to decide what to teach his little brother today. But whatever Sasuke’s feelings at the sight, they were betrayed when he noticed that the foreigner had a prominent red tattoo in the top left of his forehead: “purpose” in traditional characters. A real ninja didn’t need to write reminders of his importance on his face for everyone to see, and such posturing revealed the boy’s apparent kindness to be nothing more than a mask for condescension.

The look on the girl’s face, initially neutral and distant, quickly turned to anxiety. “Gaara, no!” she hissed, urgently but quietly enough that a lesser ninja wouldn’t have been able to hear it from this distance.

Gaara gave her what could best be described as a reproachful look, and didn’t keep his voice down at all. “Temari, I haven’t killed anyone in twenty-four days. You _know_ what happens if I go too long without killing.”

The joke—obvious as such from the fact that Sasuke couldn’t sense even a whisper of bloodlust—was in poor taste, and only confirmed Sasuke’s dislike of the little poser.

But Temari’s whole body seemed to tense up, as though she’d suddenly found herself in a life-or-death situation. She glanced briefly at Sasuke, as if not knowing what to do with him, then looked back to Gaara. “Remember what Baki-sensei said,” she whispered more softly (as if that could help against the lip-reading prowess of the Uchiha). “No killing _anyone_ until after the second stage of the Chūnin Exam.”

The third figure, a boy who might have been all right but for the ugly purple war paint on his face, finally weighed in with a nervous mutter. “Listen to your sister, Gaara. Listen to Temari. _Please_ listen to Temari. She knows what’s best for you.”

Gaara looked back down at Konohamaru, who seemed to be on the verge of tears. He tilted his head slightly.

For an instant, Sasuke’s vision blurred, and instead of Konohamaru he saw Inari lying on the ground, his hand raised in a feeble block that wouldn’t ward off a punch from a drunken civilian, never mind an attack from a ninja. It was impossible, of course, and Inari was safely in the Country of the Wave. But by the time Sasuke had reminded himself of this, he was somehow already standing in front of Gaara, his body weight shifted very nearly into a combat stance, and his Sharingan active in as explicit a display of threat as he could project.

After a very, very long second during which Gaara regarded both of them with a calculating expression, the redhead suddenly smiled. _Ignoring_ Sasuke, he glanced sideways at Temari, and then gave Konohamaru a sort of conspiratory shrug, as if to say, “See the kind of thing I have to deal with?”

“I apologise,” he said, with a light bow that seemed to have no trace of mockery. “I promise I will kill you after the second stage of the Chūnin Exam, so please wait until then.”

And before Sasuke or Konohamaru could make sense of what had just happened, the three were gone.

-o-

Hinata collated her impossible experimental results with a frown. Within the field of Naruto’s chakra in the middle of the clearing, the Substitution Technique did not work (in either direction). This despite the fact that the Substitution Technique was not a thing that could be blocked. There was no known technique that prevented a person who was following all the rules—the Rule of Stability, the Rule of Consent, the Rule of Conservation of Space, the various rules relating to size and shape and correct visualisation etc.—from shifting herself or an object into phase space, or from shifting back. It was one of the reasons why space-time techniques were so coveted in spite of their high difficulty.

It only got worse from there. The Clone Technique didn’t work either. While there _were_ techniques, very advanced ones, that could destroy clones as fast as they were created, she knew of none that could block the process so completely that she wasn’t even allowed to spend the chakra. She _was_ able to walk pre-made clones in from outside the field with no harm done, but they were then subject to the same limitations as she was. This had in fact been the first thing she learned, in accordance with Naruto’s Law of Experimentation Number One: Get a Clone to Do It First.

That left only one basic technique that Naruto would have known when experimenting himself.

But the Transformation Technique fared no better. Hinata was good at the Transformation Technique, it being a way of temporarily becoming someone or something else, and tried it every which way. She even tried transforming into the Perfectly Generic Object, an Academy training aid specially designed to be an ideal target for transformation, and useless for absolutely every other purpose. But her attempts went nowhere.

So that left her with exactly one more thing she could try.

Hinata walked out of the field, and turned to Naruto. “I’m going to use the advanced version of the Transformation Technique to turn into... let’s say Sakura, and walk into the field and see what happens.”

Naruto had drilled her very thoroughly in certain elements of ninjutsu experimentation, and one of these was that if you were experimenting on how your techniques interacted with someone else’s, you cleared every single experiment with them first. And if ever she felt tempted to ignore the safety procedures Naruto had taught her, there was always the memory of the Hair-Raising Incident.

“Don’t,” Naruto said quickly. “You’d get the same results as for the other techniques—can’t activate, can’t dispel once activated, otherwise working as normal. But don’t actually do this one.”

“Why shouldn’t I...” Hinata cut herself off. She was still in mid-test, so she had to try to work this out herself.

Hinata thought the process through step by step. The Transformation Technique always began by shifting your real body into phase space. At the same time, you applied all your concentration to shaping the chakra you left behind into a custom anchor, possessing the properties of a physical object but also allowing limited sensory input. Only in the case of the advanced version, that physical object was a remote-controlled clone of sorts, shaped like the person you wanted to imitate. There were a number of limitations—for example, it took a lot of finesse to be able to use ninjutsu through a clone whose chakra system only partially resembled a human one. Otherwise, as Kurenai-sensei had explained, any sensible shinobi would be Transformed at all times during missions, to prevent enemies from guessing their powers from reputation (or even make them guess wrongly by disguising themselves as other famous shinobi), or to confuse opponents during combat in any number of ways, or to commit hostile acts while making accurate retaliation impossible.

The good thing about transforming into another person, on the other hand, was that you avoided the greatest danger of the Transformation Technique—that of transforming into an object smaller than yourself, only to become trapped in a confined space and find that you couldn’t transform back. The Rule of Conservation of Space forbade objects to emerge from phase space if there was no room for them to do so, meaning that your real body could be trapped forever unless somebody brought your anchor out into a more open area.

That in itself was horrifying enough, but somebody could then destroy your anchor, triggering the Rule of Automatic Return. The Rule of Automatic Return prevented you from losing your connection to the real world and thereby being stuck in phase space forever, pulling you out the instant that connection was destroyed—but if it removed you from phase space, only for the Rule of Conservation of Space to leave you with nowhere to go… No one knew what happened if two rules directly conflicted like that, and that was partly because no one had ever experienced it and come back to tell the tale. (And since there _was_ such a thing as going insane from shadow clone feedback, that avenue of investigation was deemed firmly closed as well.)

Hinata had nearly walked into an area where the Transformation Technique was blocked. Suppose some accident had destroyed her clone form, and Naruto’s Dimensional Anchor prevented the Transformation Technique from bringing back her real body. She’d be... just gone, somewhere, or nowhere, or everywhere, and no one would ever know what happened to her, and she might not even be dead but she would probably wish she was. She could feel the blood draining from her face.

“Relax,” Naruto told her, slowly, gently, evenly. “You’re OK. You’re safe. Everything is all right. This is why we always check first.”

Hinata nodded weakly, and took the time to get her breathing under control. But it was an axiom of the Academy, and certainly of Hyūga Hiashi, and probably of Kurenai-sensei too though it hadn’t come up yet, that near-death wasn’t an excuse to slack off training. Hinata had to get back to work.

It clearly wasn’t as simple as Naruto blocking her from shifting her body to or from phase space, since that wouldn’t block the Clone Technique. Nor was it about blocking chakra emission (she’d used the Gentle Fist to check, aware that she was sort of arguably cheating by using a technique Naruto hadn’t had access to). What principles did _all three_ techniques have in common that he could interfere with? It wasn’t the Rule of Conservation of Space, since there was plenty of space and Naruto’s neutral chakra should have no impact on that. It wasn’t the Rule of Stability, since she’d tried using the Substitution Technique on an ordinary log and failed. It wasn’t the Rule of Consent, since she wasn’t targeting another living being...

Hinata’s mouth dropped open for the second time that day. Techniques didn’t define a living being by form, they defined it _by presence of chakra_.

Chakra was intelligent. It knew its master and rejected all others unless told otherwise. It was why you couldn’t use the Substitution Technique on another living creature unless it mentally consented or was chakra-drained virtually to the point of death. It was why you couldn’t get in range of an enemy and then create a clone inside them pre-transformed into something small and deadly. It was why medical ninja could shape their chakra into scalpels for self-defence, but couldn’t invert conventional healing techniques to serve as one-hit-kill touch weapons.

“You’ve made this entire area an extension of your body, and now nobody but you can use any technique that involves the Rule of Consent,” Hinata told him with awe.

Naruto beamed. “Yep. And that covers a whole bunch of stuff—summoning techniques, for example. There are exceptions, though, like the Fourth Hokage’s Flying Thunder God Technique, and I’ve already figured out some hard counters someone could use if they knew the right ninjutsu. So I’ll be keeping this one a secret until I _really_ need it.”

Hinata didn’t say anything. At this stage, it went without saying that she would keep Naruto’s secrets, just as he would keep hers (at least once she had some worth keeping).

Then, out of nowhere, Naruto’s expression turned melancholy. “Hinata, you know how this technique works now. Remember it if you...” he hesitated. “If you ever need to kill somebody who attacks with hordes of transforming clones.”

Hinata gave him a puzzled look, to which he did not respond.

“Anyway, that was only meant to be a demonstration of why you shouldn’t give up just because a technique doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to,” Naruto said in slightly too cheerful a voice. “And I know I’ve eaten way too far into our normal training time, and I need to be at the Foreigners’ Cemetery in an hour and a half, so how about we crank our sparring up to double pace?”

Hinata gladly obliged. She had a lot to think about, but... later. All later. For now, there was Naruto, and there was training, and she let that fill her whole world while she could.


	15. Chapter 15

Sakura stood before the door, trying to make herself knock. Even though she was a genin now, not an Academy student, in the back of her mind was a sharp awareness that she’d been summoned to the teacher’s office, and _good girls didn’t get summoned to the teacher’s office_. What made it worse was that she already knew why Kakashi-sensei (who’d had an office since when, exactly?) wanted to talk to her. She’d done her best to avoid thinking about it for weeks now, pushing away the sense of helplessness and impending doom in favour of daydreams and distractions, but now there was nowhere left to run. And if there was one thing worse than being summoned to the teacher’s office, it was being summoned to the teacher’s office and then _being late_. She raised her hand to knock.

“Come in,” Kakashi-sensei pre-empted her.

Kakashi-sensei’s voice was neutral, but then it usually was. She doubted he had perfect control of his emotions the way Sasuke did, but it was true that he rarely revealed much. Sardonic amusement, maybe, and he did show exaggerated resignation when yet another of Naruto’s pranks made something catch fire or explode or (in the case of one memorable distraction while Naruto was up to no good elsewhere) turn into a double-size copy of the Third Hokage and pontificate on the subject of ninja hedgehogs. But he hardly ever seemed genuinely happy or upset, even with Naruto, and he didn’t give out punishments or rewards based on how a student made him feel. He certainly didn’t make it plain what he wanted to hear from them. It was confusing, and sometimes it made Sakura question whether he was a real instructor at all.

With trepidation, Sakura entered Kakashi-sensei’s office. Casting her eyes around the place, the first thing that struck her was how unlived-in it felt. Where were the trophies and mementos from past missions? Where were the calligraphy scrolls hanging on the walls? Heck, where were those horrible novels he insisted on reading in front of children, with their unmistakeable bright covers that Sakura was now able to spot from a mile off? The only things in the room that spoke of any degree of personality were the bookshelves, and those were filled with tomes with desperately dry-sounding titles like _Analyses of the Third Armistice Treaty Between Hidden Leaf and Hidden Rock, vol. 3_ , and _Bloodline Limit Transplantation Theory: An Epistemological Refutation of the Saionji Model_. Oh, and the obligatory mountain of paperwork, divided into five separate messy piles, alongside a stack of slim volumes with the Namikaze Memorial Library seal on them.

But even as Sakura tried to distract herself with what little there was of note in Kakashi-sensei’s office, her feet unerringly carried her towards the visitors’ chair. She sat down, and prepared to take her punishment.

“Sakura,” Kakashi-sensei began, “we need to talk about your performance.”

Yep. This was it. This was the part where he told her what she already knew—that she’d turned out to be incompetent as a genin, incomparably worse in live combat conditions than Sasuke (of course) but also than Naruto, and that it was time to send her back to the Academy to join those whom the Genin Exam had successfully screened out to begin with. Frankly, the only surprise was that it had taken him this long.

When two team members were busy beating jōnin while the third cowered in a corner, even the likes of Naruto would be able to predict that third’s probable career progression. She’d turned out not to have what it took to be a ninja after all, even after those years of relentless study. She’d go back to the Academy, and lose everything that mattered—her place beside Sasuke, her superiority over Ino, knowing where she was in life and where she was going, all the self-respect she’d painstakingly built up over the last several years...

“I am very pleased with your progress.”

What.

Sakura strove to convert this reaction into something more appropriate to say to her team leader’s face, failed, and ended up saying nothing. But her look of disbelief probably spoke for her.

“You performed exactly how we would hope for a genin on a bodyguard mission to perform. You retained self-control while under threat, you protected the client, and you responded promptly to orders that potentially put you in harm’s way.”

“B-But... Sasuke... and Naruto...”

“Are special cases, both of them,” Kakashi-sensei told her. “And until such time as you spontaneously develop a Bloodline Limit, or go back in time and have a Demon Beast sealed inside you from birth, you should focus on doing the best _you_ can do, not the best they can do.”

Sakura wasn’t sure how to react to this. On the one hand, she wasn’t going to be sent back to the Academy. Her life was not over. She could stop holding her breath. On the other hand, Kakashi-sensei was voicing a thought she hadn’t wanted to think—that _she_ wasn’t a special case, for all her amazing test scores, that there were people all around her who could effortlessly make her look mediocre and there was nothing she could do about it. That all her hard work amounted to nothing in the face of Sasuke’s overwhelming natural talent and whatever the hell it was Naruto had going on.

“With that said, I appreciate your position,” Kakashi-sensei went on. “And from the point of view of team balance, the gap between you and them will only become more of a problem for future missions until we find a way of dealing with it. Fortunately, you do have options.”

“What do you mean?”

“The most obvious would be for you to transfer to another team,” he explained. “Captain Kurenai, for example, would make an excellent team leader for you. She started out very similarly to you in terms of strengths and weaknesses, and I honestly think you’d blossom under her tutelage.”

Sakura immediately zeroed in on the obvious implication. She’d be separated from Sasuke. It was hard enough to get his attention when they were working together all the time—how much worse would it be if she had to constantly invent opportunities to see him? And what would happen when Ino realised that the playing field was level again?

Something of her dismay must have shown on her face.

“There _are_ other options. In particular, have you heard of the Chūnin Exam?” Kakashi-sensei asked.

“Sure,” Sakura nodded, feeling a reflexive impulse to restore at least some of her credentials. “Every few years, all the major villages, as well as many of the minor ones, bring their stronger and more experienced genin together in a huge multi-stage competitive exam, and the winners get promoted to chūnin.” It was only a brief summary of a chapter Sakura could paraphrase from start to finish, but she had discovered early on in her social life that nobody liked a walking encyclopaedia. Learning to act normal wasn’t easy at first, but she’d been motivated. She had not clawed her way up from being a wallflower only to become an isolated bookworm.

“It reaffirms the spirit of friendly competition between countries, and shows the daimyo who come to watch that the funds they invest in ninja villages are being spent on quality training,” she added, to show that she’d understood the information rather than just memorised it.

“Close enough,” Kakashi-sensei (probably) smiled.

“Why are you asking, Kakashi-sensei? The next Chūnin Exam isn’t due for a while, is it?”

“It’s been pushed forward. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Sakura’s mind boggled now that she was starting to grasp the point. “You can’t be suggesting that Team Seven should enter it. We’re barely out of the Academy. It would be insa—a bad idea. Sir.”

Kakashi-sensei sighed. “Sakura, do you know the difference between you and the other two?”

Oh, Sakura had some ideas, but this was probably a rhetorical question.

“I’ve seen your Academy records. You are highly intelligent. You’re more than capable of working hard when you have an objective and know what you need to do to achieve it. You are even, if your Advanced Trap-Making scores are anything to go by, more creative than the average ninja.”

Sakura felt herself swell up with pride.

“But you’re coasting.”

That took the wind out of her sails as surely as a blast of razor-sharp shrapnel.

“Sasuke trains hard every day, unprompted, to achieve his final goal. Naruto’s motivations are more tangled, but he didn’t hold his own against one of the Seven Swordsmen of Hidden Mist because he’s a consummate prankster. Both of them are driven by something greater than the demands of daily life or even the duty they owe to Leaf.

“What are you driven by, Sakura? If the world you knew vanished into thin air tomorrow, where would you find your reason to carry on?” Kakashi-sensei asked, leaning forward slightly as he looked straight at her.

Sakura sat there, dumbfounded. What kind of question was that to ask a twelve-year old? A few months out of the Academy, was she supposed to have all the answers, to have her life purpose sorted out and ready to go? Did Kakashi-sensei not remember being twelve? Were everyone else’s team leaders so unreasonable, or had she got the worst one by luck of the draw?

Only she couldn’t help thinking Sasuke wouldn’t have reacted that way. _He_ ’d have an answer ready, bold and insightful, and probably so amazing it would shut Kakashi-sensei right up. _He_ wouldn’t let himself be bullied by anyone, not even a jōnin. She felt Inner Sakura’s hands on her back, pushing her forward, and resolved to stand up to Kakashi-sensei there and then.

“I don’t see what this has to do with the Chūnin Exam,” she said defiantly.

“No, you don’t,” Kakashi-sensei replied, instantly making her feel foolish rather than rebellious. “But do you remember how you felt when you were pulling Naruto out of his possessed state?”

She’d mostly just been terrified. But the tiny part of her that remained behind the fear _had_ glimpsed something else. A faint sense of meaning, of significance. Of her actions, for once in her life, making a difference to something beyond herself.

All of which she summed up in a nod.

Kakashi-sensei nodded back, acting as if he could read her mind. It would have been seriously irritating if it didn’t mean she was spared from trying to put her feelings into words.

“The Chūnin Exam is a high-pressure survival situation which makes you draw on inner resources you didn’t know you had. In the moment, you tend to find that all the countless thoughts and beliefs that do not matter get stripped away. It offers you the chance to find out who you really are, with a much lower fatality rate than an equally intense engagement in the real world. Not everyone walks away from the Chūnin Exam a better person, but everyone walks away changed by the experience.”

“You’re saying you think I should enter the Chūnin Exam so I can find an inner purpose like Sasuke and Naruto have,” Sakura concluded. Yep, still Captain Unreasonable. What did he think this was, one of Naruto’s ridiculous manga?

“I am saying nothing of the sort, Sakura. You have to make your own decision. I think the benefits of entering the Chūnin Exam outweigh the risks, but that’s not to say the risks are low—especially this year—or that it’s the only way you can proceed. If you want to talk to other people and get more input, then not only is that your right, but learning to accept and integrate alternative perspectives is a valuable shinobi skill in itself. Its absence has... consequences. I’m bringing this up now because if you want to enter the exam, you need to submit this form,” Kakashi-sensei handed her a signed piece of paper, “within three days.”

“What?!” Sakura had a distinct sense of injustice piling on injustice. “That’s hardly any time at all!”

Kakashi-sensei raised his visible eyebrow. “I’ll be sure to pass on your complaint about the scheduling to the Hokage when I next see him.”

Sakura had nothing to say to this. Instead, she picked up the piece of paper and stormed off. She was so frustrated she didn’t even remember to wait for a formal dismissal.

Kakashi-sensei’s voice caught her on the way out. “Oh, and could you tell Naruto to meet me at Meeting Place Four at 5 p.m.?”

“Not here?”

Kakashi-sensei shook his head firmly. “As far as Naruto is concerned, I do _not_ have an office. Consider it an S-rank secret, with all appropriate repercussions for being indiscreet.”

-o-

Naruto stumbled into his flat, his weary body demanding that he fall on the bed and abandon his unconvincing pretence of consciousness. Sparring with Hinata was getting more demanding, as she was gradually learning exactly how strong she was, and therefore starting to trust herself to go on the offensive without risk of injury to her partner. The fact that for the last few days she’d seemed suffused with new energy didn’t help either. And the funeral ceremony he’d gone to afterwards had been... well, a different kind of draining. Sometimes closure came with a cost.

It wasn’t that he regretted for a second spending time with his girlfriend. Nor had he even considered not going to the other thing after Kakashi-sensei had discreetly informed him of the time and date. But right now all the romance in the world, and all the right things to do, couldn’t be worth as much as an hour of sleep.

This was why when Naruto saw an important-looking envelope on the floor next to his door, his first reaction was a heartfelt groan, followed by an immediate decision to let sleeping dogs lie. Nothing in that envelope could be as urgent as his need to collapse.

He was halfway to his bed when he stopped in his tracks. No, his eyes must have been playing tricks on him. That couldn’t have been...

With an icy sense of creeping dread, Naruto turned around and examined the envelope. Yes, he was forced to admit, he recognised that symbol. It wasn’t one he could permit himself not to know at this point.

The Hyūga had sent him a formal letter.

His hand stopped halfway to picking it up as a frightening thought occurred to him. The Hyūga would be boiling with rage if they knew that the village pariah was dating their clan heir. He wouldn’t for a second put it past them to decide that assassination was the simplest solution. Was there a Hyūga watching him right now with the Byakugan, waiting for him to touch the envelope? Naruto had learned Haku’s lesson well, and made sure to read up on the uses and effects of contact poison. If the envelope was poisoned and Naruto handled it even briefly, all that would be left was for the Hyūga assassin to sneak in and dispose of the body, and no one would ever know. With the Byakugan’s ability to scan for possible witnesses, it could easily become the perfect crime.

After a few seconds of exhausted terror, Naruto mentally smacked himself upside the head. This had to be tiredness, right? Leaf’s most badass genin and future greatest Hokage couldn’t _really_ be this dumb.

Let's just pretend that never happened and move on.

“Shadow Clone Technique!”

He breathed a sigh of relief when his clone didn’t vanish upon handling the letter. Of course, it _could_ have a poison with a delayed effect (it wasn’t paranoia if you’d survived double digits of suspicious accidents since the age of five), so Naruto had the clone read it, deposit it on Naruto’s least favourite plate, and then dispel himself to give Naruto the information.

_Hyūga Hiashi_

_requests the pleasure of your company_

_for afternoon tea_

_at four o’clock today_

_at the Hyūga Clan compound._

_You are requested to attend in person and, in light of sensitive matters to be discussed, to kindly refrain from informing anyone of your imminent visit._

What was the time now? Naruto didn’t even know why he bothered looking. Of course it was 3:30.

The good news for Naruto was that the Hyūga Clan compound was within easy running distance (at least for typical ninja, to whom parkour was a form of light exercise for the convalescent). The bad news was that half an hour was nowhere near enough time to prepare for a confrontation with the village’s deadliest clan. For a start, there was every possibility that he was walking into a trap. How else was he to interpret the request that he come himself (which suggested that they at least knew about his shadow clones) and that he not tell anyone where he was going? They might as well have asked him to cut his own throat and save them the effort. And not going wasn’t an option—if they saw him acting like he was afraid of them, they’d interpret it as an insult and have the perfect justification to take revenge.

Still, he had a unique advantage when it came to rapid planning. “Worldwide Uzumaki Naruto Coalition, assemble!”

He met his clones’ eyes, one by one. “Men, you know exactly how dire the situation is, so let’s get cracking. What’s our top priority?”

“Surviving the meeting,” Naruto Four volunteered. “We’ll be walking into the heart of the enemy compound, on their schedule, with no chance of backup. We need countermeasures and escape routes.”

“More importantly,” Naruto Seven cut in, “we need to know the etiquette for tea with nobles. If we do the wrong thing and offend him, it might be just the excuse he needs to decide we’re not good enough for Hinata—assuming he hasn’t already.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start with that,” Naruto Prime admitted. “Like, do I go in my ninja uniform, or in my one smart outfit?”

“Ninja uniform, duh,” Naruto Two rolled his eyes. “You think you have any chances of surviving a fight against Hyūga Hiashi without weapons?”

Naruto Twelve gave him an “I can’t believe I’m the same person as this idiot” look. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m sure coming dressed for combat is going to give him a positive impression of our intentions. Or our level of refinement, for that matter. Have _you_ ever heard of someone going to a tea ceremony in battle gear? No, it’s got to be the outfit.”

“Seriously? He’s probably summoned us because he’s furious that we’re dating his daughter, and you want to turn up to our first meeting with him wearing the clothes from that date? Come on, Prime, back me up here.”

Naruto Prime sighed as the uncoordinated chatter of his clones washed over him. There had to be a better way than this.

“Right,” he finally announced. “Narutos One through Three, figure out what to do about clothes. Narutos Four through Seven, decide what we most need to know etiquette-wise, then dispel yourselves. Naruto Eight, start running to the nearest library _now_ , and look up the stuff they choose, plus any maps and architectural info on the Hyūga compound you can find, then dispel yourself too. Narutos Nine through Twelve, I need ideas for defending myself against what I’m assuming to be like Hinata’s abilities turned up to eleven.”

“What are _you_ going to do?”

“I’m going to lie down and pretend this isn’t happening. Get me in twenty.”

-o-

“Do you know why I’ve called you here, Sasuke?” Kakashi-sensei asked.

“You think I should go for the Chūnin Exam.”

Kakashi-sensei (probably) smiled. “Very good. I assume you noticed the increased number of foreign shinobi.”

“Yes.” After those three from Hidden Sand, Sasuke had started paying more attention to his surroundings. It seemed like there were unfamiliar faces everywhere, many with outlandish, manga-like uniforms and strange weapons he’d only previously seen in books. When, shortly afterwards, Kakashi-sensei had unexpectedly summoned him to his office, there was only one obvious conclusion.

“Are you interested? You have three days to decide and hand in this form if you are.”

Was Sasuke interested? Before the Wave mission, he’d probably have hesitated. The Chūnin Exam was serious business. Injuries happened. Deaths were not unknown. Was he really ready?

But things were clearer to him now. He was alone after all, and that meant he had to be stronger. Much stronger. Strong enough to need no one else. Something _he_ had said, at the end, kept echoing in Sasuke’s head. “If you wish to know the truth, be strong. Be stronger than I was.”

Sasuke wanted the truth. He craved it. Why had Itachi, the Uchiha Clan’s brightest star, turned on everyone he’d ever loved? Why had he killed them all, even his own family, even his parents, only to spare his worthless little brother? Why had a relentless mass murderer, who had cut down the elderly as they tried to flee, seemed so sad in those final moments? Why did he leave behind such cryptic words?

Why, above all, had his brother, the most important person in Sasuke’s life, abandoned him in the most brutal way possible?

Maybe that was just Sasuke’s destiny. Betrayal. Abandonment. He should have learned from the experience, and let himself be alone as he was meant to be. Things were clearer now, and he’d find the strength he needed on his own. He’d find the answers with his own power, and the Chūnin Exam was a natural next step. How much stronger could he become by fighting the world’s best genin? What new powers could he obtain by facing them now that his Sharingan was active, allowing him to copy any technique he was theoretically capable of performing? What opportunities could he encounter to utterly crush a certain tattooed poser? Little by little, as he thought about it, the emptiness inside him was replaced with excitement. Was he interested? The question was absurd.

When Kakashi-sensei asked him if he knew what the Chūnin Exam’s purpose was, the answer was so obvious as to be trivial. It was the ultimate genin training exercise, of course, high risk in return for levels of improvement that could catapult one to chūnin levels of skill over just a few short days. Ninja grew the most through real battle against real enemies, and this was as close as training could get to that.

Before he left, though, he had to ask about something that had been bugging him.

“Kakashi-sensei, why do you have an office? Does every jōnin have one, or…”

“My advice to you,” Kakashi-sensei replied, “is to split your focus evenly between theoretical preparation and practical training. While the Chūnin Exam traditionally has a heavy focus on combat and survival, don’t make the mistake of being unprepared for the written examination. If you let your guard down even a little, you will fail the test and be eliminated.”

-o-

The great double doors slammed shut behind Naruto. He’d done his best to memorise the route his blank-faced Hyūga guide had taken to bring him here from the front gate, but it had been (deliberately?) circuitous and hard-to-follow, and Naruto had a sneaking suspicion that they’d passed certain areas more than once. Any fading hopes Naruto had that this was an innocent social occasion were crushed by the heavy bolt that he heard fall into place behind him a second later.

With no way back, Naruto proceeded forwards. The building was old, clearly a reconstruction of something raised in the very first days of Leaf, perhaps even with some of its original materials (something, he understood, the extremely rich liked to do). It reminded him of a dojo: broad, wooden, empty but for support pillars, some calligraphy scrolls hanging on the walls, and… hm, maybe not a dojo after all. The one object in the room, towards the back, was a statue of some ancient Hyūga patriarch, dressed in austere formal robes and sitting in a kneeling position on the floor. For a sparingly painted piece of marble, it radiated a distinct, eerie sense of presence.

Naruto had never been at ease with the reverence for one’s ancestors so common among the older clans. Not only was it inapplicable to him personally (the Namikaze were extinct, and the Uzumaki had been refugees from a now-destroyed village, so his recent revelations had not restored any lost family ties), but he felt it skirted disturbingly close to the Sage’s ancient taboo on worship of the supernatural. Naruto had strong feelings about said taboo since it was probably the reason why, while everyone still hated him and treated him as less than human, nobody felt they had a religious obligation to burn him at the stake.

On the plus side, if this was a Hyūga holy place, that reduced the odds of its being a trap-filled gauntlet designed to test his worthiness (or indeed just to kill him).

Well, nothing for it.

“Hello? It’s me, Uzumaki Naruto. I’m here!”

The statue blinked.

“So I see,” Hyūga Hiashi told him without a hint of humour in his voice.

“Thank you for coming. Please be seated.” Hinata’s father gestured in front of him, where—completely overlooked earlier as Naruto’s attention had been captured by the “statue”—a tea ceremony set lay waiting.

Naruto sat down, suddenly very glad that he was wearing his most formal clothes, but simultaneously aware that this wasn’t saying much, and that he had probably already lost points as a result.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Hyūga,” he said as evenly as possible, trying not to be intimidated, and hoping that the adrenaline flowing through his veins did not suddenly fade and cause him to collapse in an enervated heap.

“We have much to discuss, you and I,” Hinata’s father went on, his eyes never once leaving Naruto’s face, “but first I invite you to sample this tea, brewed according to a recipe passed down through the Hyūga Clan for over twenty generations. Its lineage is longer and more illustrious than that of many.”

Naruto couldn’t help his eyebrows rising a little. His clones had finished their emergency research just in time, and he was aware that in a proper tea ceremony, the tea was prepared in the presence of the guest, not in advance.

Lord Hyūga noticed. “I apologise for breaking with protocol. The brewing process for this tea is quite involved, and I imagine that your background would leave you with little interest in such subtleties.”

He poured the tea into two cups, each of which looked like it was worth more than all of Naruto’s possessions put together (even including the jacket).

Naruto reached out to pick up the cup closer to him, then stopped at the last second. He knew that, as a guest, he was supposed to drink first. He also knew that Lord Hyūga had taken the unusual step of preparing this tea so Naruto couldn’t observe the process, and he estimated a three in four chance that Lord Hyūga wanted him dead or at least severely harmed. Which meant the tea had every possibility of being poisoned. Or perhaps the tea was a distraction and he’d poisoned the cup instead—but the cups were positioned such that Naruto could realistically take either, and while Lord Hyūga might well be distraught at the thought of his heir dating Leaf’s least eligible young bachelor, he was unlikely to risk suicide to get rid of him.

Of course, if Lord Hyūga was _really_ serious about this, he’d have poisoned everything and just used a poison he himself was immune to. But insofar as Naruto couldn’t refuse to drink altogether without giving offence, that was a risk he was going to have to take. The important thing was to get Lord Hyūga to drink first, and thereby at least narrow down the possibilities (and buy himself time to figure out what to do next).

“Thank you, my lord,” Naruto said in his most respectful voice, which he had to admit was not particularly well-practised. “But I have acted rudely in arriving late,” because you had your guide lead me on a figure-of-eight tour around the compound, “and by way of apology I would like to surrender the right to drink first to you.”

A flicker of curiosity crossed the studied polite blankness of his host’s face.

“On the contrary,” Lord Hyūga replied, “your timing allowed me to finish brewing the tea correctly. If anyone is at fault here, it is I. It is obvious now that in sending the invitation so late, I have denied you essential time to prepare. Allowing you to drink first is the least I could do to atone.”

So that was the game, was it?

“You are too kind, my lord. But under any circumstances it would be rude of a commoner like myself to drink first in the company of the head of Leaf’s most noble clan. Please, after you.”

Lord Hyūga’s expression did not change, but something about him seemed slightly more animated and less statue-like. Oddly, it made Naruto think of Hinata the first time she’d found herself doing really well at shogi.

“Your humility does you credit, Uzumaki Naruto. But is it not written in the laws of hospitality that the host shall always humble himself before the guest, though he be a lion receiving a flea?”

Naruto nodded his head in acknowledgment, thinking fast, and in particular trying to find manga references that would help him figure out the right speaking style. “Indeed. But even before the laws of hospitality, there are the laws of seniority, by which you are both my elder and my senior in the way of the ninja. I would never dare disrespect my elders by being presumptuous, and so I offer the first drink to you.” For just one moment, Naruto was extremely grateful that there were no witnesses, and no chance of anyone who knew him overhearing that statement.

One corner of Lord Hyūga’s mouth twitched slightly. Had that been too brazen a lie?

“Then surely,” the man finally answered, “you understand that seniority comes with responsibility? While those without breeding or rank may behave like the beasts of the field, a true gentleman must acknowledge and atone for every misstep. And since I seem to have troubled you by inviting you to an event normally reserved for the aristocracy, it is only just that I take responsibility for my actions by granting you the right to drink first.”

Was Hinata’s father deliberately making his speech more and more complicated, or was Naruto’s exhaustion starting to take over his brain again? He had to end this fast, before he got too tired and did something stupid. Time for desperate measures.

“My lord!” He allowed his eyes to widen as if in surprise, then bent his head to the floor in the most humble bow possible. “Please forgive me. I realise now that I have committed the gravest of errors—that of arguing with you in your own home over who should take the first drink, when every law demands that I abide by whatever judgment you hand down. I am shamed, and must atone at the very least by surrendering the first drink to you, lest I be forced to flee this place in humiliation.” He was particularly proud of the “lest”.

Lord Hyūga looked at him for a few seconds, then seemed to come to a decision.

“Raise your head, Uzumaki Naruto, and grant me your forgiveness instead. Only now do I realise the arrogance of refusing the gift you have repeatedly offered me, and of denying the innocent spirit of youth that transcends proper etiquette. I shall do as you say, and drink first.”

Naruto was only beginning to mentally celebrate his victory when Lord Hyūga reached towards the cups. But as he leaned over, his movement caused the hem of his sleeve to sway a little too far forwards, catching the edges of both. They toppled, spilling the tea onto the floor.

“Why, I do apologise,” Lord Hyūga said, still expressionless. “This tea is only brewed with one serving per person, so it seems neither of us will be able to partake of it today. Do excuse me while I bring cloth to clean up.”

Now Naruto was even more worried. Why would Hinata’s father spill the tea, unless it really had been poisoned? And why would the head of a noble clan clean up his own mess, unless he’d deliberately chosen to send his servants away to remove any witnesses of what he was about to do? Or was the whole thing a mind game designed to put Naruto off balance, in which case it was working very well? Or was he intended to assume that it was a mind game, thereby leaving himself vulnerable to an actual assassination attempt still to come? Exactly how many levels was Hyūga Hiashi playing on here? Had he given in too easily to Naruto’s winning move, or was Naruto just being paranoid now? Perhaps that had been the intent?

By the time Lord Hyūga returned and wiped up the tea (should Naruto have offered to do that? Aargh), it felt like Naruto’s brain was tying itself in knots. Which, of course, was when his host decided to move on to the discussion proper.

“Uzumaki Naruto,” he began, seating himself in the formal kneeling position once again, “allow me to be direct. What are your intentions towards my daughter?”

How was Naruto supposed to answer _that_? He wasn’t even sure he knew himself, and he certainly couldn’t tell what answer Hinata’s father would want to hear.

“I… I want to make her happy,” he finally said. There couldn’t be any safer answer than that, right?

But Lord Hyūga’s voice grew several degrees colder. “I will warn you now not to lie to me. After decades of practice, one does not need the Byakugan to read body language.”

“I’m not lying!” Naruto surprised himself with the intensity of his reply. “My lord,” he hastily added, mindful of the need not to insult his girlfriend’s father who could probably wipe him off the face of the earth with a mere gesture.

But the cold did not leave Lord Hyūga’s voice. “Then you truly are a child. Happiness is for commoners to seek. A noble’s life is duty, it is the responsibility to bear the burdens that the common man cannot. For leaders to pursue their own happiness above the greater good is the path to corruption. Is this what you would wish for my daughter?”

“No, my lord.” Naruto hesitated. If Lord Hyūga could really tell when he was lying (and this wasn’t just another mind game), then that really limited his options in this conversation. A lifetime of lying to everyone did not prepare you for complete sincerity. “But… But I don’t think lack of responsibility is Hinata’s problem. If anything… I think it’s crushing her.”

“Are you saying she is unfit to be the Hyūga heir?”

There was a loaded question.

“That’s not it. I think…” Naruto cast around for some way of expressing what he did think. “My lord, you’re Hyūga Hiashi.”

Lord Hyūga somehow managed, without changing his expression in the slightest, to convey how unimpressed he was at this revelation.

“I mean… you’re the head of the Hyūga Clan. You’re a hero of the Third Great Ninja War. You’re one of Leaf’s strongest jōnin. Maybe you don’t entirely remember what it was like not to be strong, or maybe you were like this from the beginning. But Hinata’s different.

“Some people need time to grow into being strong, into being able to bear the responsibility they’re supposed to. Sometimes they need help.”

“And you think,” Lord Hyūga asked, a trace of danger in his voice, “that you can be of more help to my daughter than myself and the entirety of the Hyūga Clan?”

Naruto did not want to give the obvious answer, but after some thought he still couldn’t see any way around it. “With respect, my lord, you and the entirety of the Hyūga Clan have made her what she is now. And I get the impression that you’re not satisfied with the result.”

Suddenly, a sense of intense threat washed over Naruto. Lord Hyūga’s presence expanded to envelop him like a snowstorm, holding him in place even as shadows moved within the obscured space around him, waiting for their moment to strike.

“ _What has she said to you?_ ”

“Nothing!” Naruto rushed to get the word out like his life depended on it.

The presence retreated. Not completely, but a little, enough for some feeling to start coming back into his frozen limbs.

“Nothing. She never talks about her family life.” Naruto took a few deep breaths to restore such calm as he could manage. “But I’m not stupid. I can see the contours of what she doesn’t talk about, and I can draw my own conclusions.”

“Supposing what you say is true…” the words were heavy, falling into place like lead blocks from some great height. “Supposing that, what is it you think you can do for her?”

“I can make her stronger.” Naruto was on more familiar ground now. “I can help her believe in herself. I can help her find out what she’s capable of.” Naruto felt something, an influx of… protectiveness? Affection? Pride in who Hinata was? He didn’t know the name of this feeling, but it felt right, and he went with it.

“My lord, Hinata is intelligent, imaginative, dedicated, compassionate. She has the potential to be a great clan leader someday. I think I can help get her there, and it’s what she wants as well. Please… I know you’re trying to do your best for her in your own way. Let me do the same in mine.”

The sense of threat retreated a little further.

“Why?” Lord Hyūga demanded. “Why would you go so far for her?”

Was he really going to make him say it? Yes. Yes, he was. Naruto inwardly cringed, but then finally sucked it up. If he could face Momochi “Demon” Zabuza in one-on-one combat, then he could damn well admit his feelings for a girl to her hostile father.

“Because I care about her,” Naruto said. “Because she’s my best friend, and more. Because I don’t have anything else to give her... and I want to give her everything I can.” That last part had sounded defiant in his head, like he was angry with Lord Hyūga for challenging his feelings, but somehow his voice caught when he was saying it out loud, and it came out soft, quiet, gentle.

Silence.

Lord Hyūga said nothing. There was no sense of threat anymore, just an unbroken stillness, like the snowstorm had retreated and left everything covered in perfect white.

Naruto had no sense of time, watching the completely motionless figure of his host. Were minutes passing, or hours?

Finally, Lord Hyūga looked at him.

“I have made my decision. Do not think ill of me, but for the good of my daughter and the Hyūga Clan, Uzumaki Naruto…”

His hand was suddenly in front of Naruto’s heart, his chakra one precise needle, piercing the flesh as if it wasn’t there.

“…you must die.”

-o-

Sakura was sick of looking for Naruto. It was nearly 5 p.m. now, and he was going to be late to his meeting even if she did catch up to him, and it would all be her fault. Even though it was all Naruto’s fault for being so hard to find. And Captain Unreasonable’s fault for making her look in the first place.

Yes, she knew the reasoning. Use genin as messengers whenever convenient because they need to develop their tracking skills, and need to be able to locate fellow ninja (and especially teammates) quickly if standard communication channels ever fail. She didn’t like it, but it made sense—except the people who came up with the practice had never anticipated that anyone would want to find Naruto.

She knew he’d come out of the Foreigners’ Cemetery (and what in blazes had he been doing _there_?) hours ago, then probably gone home. There the trail ended. Sakura was one of the few people who knew that on the rare occasions that Naruto wasn’t being obnoxiously in-your-face, he could be surprisingly stealthy (such as when preparing pranks). But why would he be sneaking around on a day off? On second thought, maybe she didn’t want to know. It might be best to hope for the more innocent alternative, that he was in a real A-rank hurry. On a weekend like this, with the streets so crowded, that would mean sticking to the ninja routes (in which case the only witnesses would be people who thought to look up).

In other words, here was Naruto making her life as difficult as possible without even trying. She’d have to alert the press.

After a while she had a brainwave, and decided to track down Hinata instead. Even if Naruto’s new girlfriend (Naruto had a girlfriend. What was _wrong_ with the world?) didn’t know where he was, she could always use her Bloodline Limit to locate him in the blink of an eye. Why Hinata was apparently in the forest outside the village she didn’t know, but it made tracking her a lot easier, so Sakura wasn’t complaining.

After following a trail of broken twigs and occasional footprints (reassuring in that if Hinata wasn’t covering her tracks, it meant Sakura wasn’t accidentally trailing her on some sort of secret mission or private errand), she finally bumped into her target heading the other way. As Hinata was on her way home from wherever she’d been, the two girls ended up walking back together.

“You haven’t seen Naruto, have you, Hinata?”

“No, not since, um…” Hinata stopped awkwardly.

“It’s OK,” Sakura tried to look friendly and not at all fed up. “I know about you two dating—I was the one who helped him pick out clothes for your first date.”

“Oh, so you did. That was very kind of you.” Hinata smiled. “Well, we were training together earlier this afternoon, but I haven’t seen him since then, and I don’t know where he’d be now.”

That made it Plan B for Byakugan, then. “In that case, would you mind using your ability to find him for me? I’ve got a message I need to get to him.”

But Hinata shook her head. “I’m sorry. I promised him I wouldn’t use the Byakugan to look for him unless there was an emergency.”

Drat. On reflection, Sakura supposed it made sense. Imagine dating someone who could always see you, no matter where you were or what you were doing. The creepiness level made shivers run down her spine.

“ _Is_ it an emergency?”

Sakura considered. It would serve both Naruto and Kakashi-sensei right if the message failed to get through because of their unhelpfulness, and it wasn’t _really_ urgent. They were probably only going to talk about the Chūnin Exam, which Naruto would go for without a second thought because he was some kind of idiot savant superhero now. Then again, Sakura’s deep-rooted instincts screamed at her that if she went to the teacher’s office and received a special errand, then failing at that errand—or worse, abandoning it—was a crime worse than murder. There were no gold stars for people like that.

“I guess?” she finally told Hinata.

“Well, if you’re sure… Byakugan!”

Hinata scanned for a few seconds.

“Sorry, Sakura. I can’t find him. My range isn’t long enough to see much of the village from all the way out here.”

“Oh. Never mind. Off I go, then.” Joy. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy, not where Naruto was concerned. With him and Captain Unreasonable constantly conspiring to make her suffer, and the rest of the world being at best well-meaning but useless, was it any wonder that she turned to Sasuke as the one beacon of sanity and competence in her life?

“Oh, um, Sakura?”

“What?” Don’t snap, don’t snap, it’s not the poor girl’s fault that she’s dating the world’s biggest pain in the butt. OK, it sort of is, but obviously Naruto must have driven her insane in some way for that to happen, so the blame comes back to him in the end.

“Kurenai-sensei had a word with me earlier. She, um, asked if I was prepared to consider swapping teams with you, hypothetically speaking.”

“And… what did you say?” Sakura asked hesitantly.

Hinata took a deep breath. “I… don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Really?” Sakura hadn’t seen that coming at all. “But why wouldn’t you want to be on the same team as Naruto?” Being on the same team as Sasuke was the luckiest break she’d had in living memory. Just how badly had Naruto ruined Hinata’s powers of judgement for her to turn down an opportunity like this?

The answer floored her.

“Because he needs you.”

“He what.” This time, Sakura couldn’t restrain herself.

Hinata began to fidget. “With Naruto and me, he’s always the one looking after me. If I was on the same team with him, the way I am now, I’d only be more of a burden on him. Maybe one day… but right now, he needs someone who can look after him by his side.”

“Me? Look after him?” A puzzled Sakura briefly thought through her normal patterns of interaction with Naruto. Regular violence. A metric tonne of snark. The occasional very backhanded compliment. Was she missing something here?

“Sure. You’re like his big sister. Or like I imagine a big sister should be. You’re always there, no matter what’s happening in his life. He knows you better than he knows most people, and he knows how you’ll react to anything he does.” Hinata paused, and frowned as she tried to collect her thoughts. “I know you can be a bit mean to him sometimes, but it’s mean, not hostile like an enemy. It’s the way people in a family act. And he can let himself do really silly things, knowing that if he goes too far, you’ll ‘beat some sense into him’.

“Um. Actually, about that…” Hinata stopped fidgeting. “I know Naruto can fight his own battles, but, um, I’m his girlfriend now, and if you put him in hospital again… I think I’ll have to get upset.”

Sakura’s eyes widened, possibly to the size of dinner plates. What _had_ Naruto done to this girl?

“Please don’t take that the wrong way!” Hinata exclaimed. “I, um, I really want us to be friends.” She looked down sheepishly. The fidgeting resumed.

Friends, huh? Sakura kind of missed having those. There was this thing that happened when your one friend was the best friend you clung to like a drowning woman to a rock, and then she became your rival and suddenly you had no friends anymore. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Hinata, a former non-entity who had just given her an enormous compliment (if that’s what it was), threatened her and made overtures of friendship in a single short conversation, but it was at least something to think about.

Most of her mind, though, was still stuck on Hinata’s earlier statement. “His big sister? Really?”

“I think so. I think… maybe that’s who you are in Team Seven? Naruto and Sasuke don’t have families, or many friends, but you’re this person who’s always got their backs, and always covers their blind spots. I, um, don’t mean ninja missions or anything. Like when Naruto needed help with the date, and he went straight to you, and I guess you were a little bit mean to him, but you still dropped everything to help him out.

“Sorry. I’m rambling.” Hinata looked at Sakura nervously. “Just, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’m really grateful for how you make Naruto’s life more… stable, I guess? I know it’s a thing I can’t do yet.”

Sakura didn’t know what to say. It had been too long since she’d had this kind of conversation. Too long, really, since there’d been anyone she could have such a conversation _with_. Finally, she decided to go for the safe option and change the subject.

“So what are you doing all the way out here, anyway?”

“Oh, my father asked me to deliver some documents to a Hyūga at one of the more distant guard posts. It’s a bit of a long walk, but he said I could take my time, so I don’t mind.”

“Huh.” Wasn’t Hinata supposed to be the clan heir or something? Well, it was a relief of sorts to know that unhelpful authority figures sent genin to run time-consuming errands on their days off no matter how far up you went.

Sakura sighed, and said goodbye to Hinata. She did feel an unexpected temptation to stay, and walk back to the village at a reasonable pace, and maybe chat a little bit in the process. But Kakashi-sensei was disturbingly insightful when it came to telling how hard you’d tried to carry out his orders, and subtle in his vengeance if it wasn’t hard enough.

-o-

Naruto’s shadow clone popped with a puff of smoke, at the same time as its wristband transformed into the original (incidentally in full combat gear). The letter said to attend in person—it never said that the person had to do the talking.

However, said original was now trapped in a dojo with a homicidal jōnin whose active Byakugan made him immune to any and all misdirection attempts, including the Transformation Technique, and who happened to be leader of a taijutsu specialist clan. If the backup plan he’d concocted while observing the dojo in wristband form didn’t work...

“Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

The hall was filled with several hundred shadow clones, enough to have the density of a crowd at a long-awaited reunion gig. Naruto staggered from the sudden chakra drain—Kakashi-sensei hadn’t been wrong about that. He’d have to practise if he got out of this alive.

Lord Hyūga’s reply was straightforward, if stunning to someone more used to Hinata’s power level.

“Eight Trigrams One Hundred and Twenty-Eight Strikes.”

The clone-free space around Hinata’s father started to expand rapidly. Every one of his strikes took out a clone, and his speed was growing exponentially with every second as the technique began to accelerate.

Naruto hated to use incomplete techniques in field conditions, but this time he had no choice, nor even time to think.

“Uzumaki-Style Ninjutsu: Shell Game Technique (prototype)!”

Every clone that wasn’t in the middle of a futile taijutsu move was now using the Substitution Technique. The clones were swapping with each other and the original fast enough that the Byakugan’s ability to keep track of Naruto’s location was now useless. Even if Lord Hyūga could tell which one was real after so many exchanges, Naruto would be gone by the time he got there.

Even so, at the rate his opponent was going, this was only going to buy Naruto a few seconds at best. He’d already had a couple of close shaves where he managed to swap places with a clone an instant before Lord Hyūga’s chakra strike pierced his skin. Pretty soon, he’d be out of clones, and then he’d have no way of defending himself at all.

Which brought him to his other idea, and if there was one thing Naruto hated to use more than incomplete techniques, it was suicide techniques.

“Uzumaki-Style Ninjutsu: Indoor Apocalypse Technique!”

Every clone that wasn’t immediately within range of Lord Hyūga started throwing kunai, as did Naruto after every Substitution. Naturally, not one of them hit their target.

By the time Hinata’s father had finished disposing of the clones, the walls, roof and support beams were peppered with kunai.

“Don’t move,” Naruto said sharply.

Lord Hyūga looked at him from the other end of the dojo (where the final clone had been tactically positioned at the last second).

“I told you that you cannot deceive me, Uzumaki Naruto. Yes, I see the explosive tags you have attached to all of those kunai. Do you not wonder why I allowed you to launch them?”

Allowed? Oh, man.

“I can see your chakra imbued into each one. I can tell from this that they are shadow clones, and I know that cloned explosives cannot detonate. And yes, I can see that both of the kunai you are holding are clones as well, and the tags on those. Your bluff has failed. Now, take this final chance to be like a Hyūga, and accept your fate with grace.”

Naruto had at most a couple of seconds left to live—and he used them to the full.

He threw one of the kunai he was holding upwards. In the same movement, he brought his hands together and detonated the tag on every real kunai—and there were _plenty_ of real kunai—attached to the building’s insides.

At that moment, Lord Hyūga reached him. The words “Hyūga Certain Kill Ultimate Death Technique” flashed across Naruto’s mind.

Just before the strike could connect, the kunai flying upwards turned back into a shadow clone, its hands already in starting position for the Substitution Technique (thank you, Kyubey, for that little trick). As it swapped places with him, Naruto (whose hands were still in the detonation position), triggered the tag now attached to its sleeve, directly in front of Hyūga Hiashi.

By this point, there was fire and destruction everywhere, the building tearing itself apart as every single structural support shattered at once. Looking up at the collapsing roof, Naruto found a tiny glimpse of sky, and threw the second kunai through the gap towards it. As soon as it was through, the second kunai turned back into a shadow clone, and swapped with Naruto.

He was alive.

Now he just had the entire rest of the Hyūga Clan to worry about.

-o-

Naruto was out of breath by the time he reached the nearest point of exit, the front gate, which hopefully had enough passers-by near it to prevent the Hyūga from murdering him outright in public. There was no sign of pursuit so far, but that didn’t say much when dealing with ninja who could see you no matter where you were.

Still, he was here, and at least relatively safe, and—

“Your performance has been satisfactory,” Lord Hyūga told him, standing comfortably in the shade of the gate. “I give you permission to continue courting my daughter—for the time being.”

Naruto just stood there, stunned, as Lord Hyūga walked past him and back into the compound.

-o-

It was late evening by the time Naruto had un-collapsed enough to open the new, larger Hyūga-marked envelope he’d found already waiting for him on his return. This time, he’d decided to pointedly ignore it until he had both sufficient rest and ramen, badly-needed ramen.

_Uzumaki Naruto,_

_Please find attached a fee for services rendered. I had been attempting to have that eyesore demolished for years now, but the Council of Elders blocked me at every turn._

_I also commend you for being the first person in some years to think of infusing your chakra into ordinary objects in order to confuse the Byakugan. I believe you are presently the only living non-Hyūga with that knowledge._

_I wish you fortune in surviving the coming trials._

There was no signature—a throwaway gesture of indemnity from a man who probably believed himself above consequences anyway.

-o-

“You know, Chōji,” Ino commented as she watched the last of the pork vanish from the plate, “this is supposed to be an all-team celebration. And given how it’s Asuma-sensei’s treat for us retrieving that stolen painting and all, don’t you think we should at least wait for him before digging in?”

“Don’t worry, I’m just whetting my appetite. This doesn’t even count as starting the meal.”

Shikamaru, meanwhile, sat back and continued reading the menu (or possibly staring into space, you never could tell). Of the three of them, he’d made the least effort with his civilian clothes, just throwing on a random T-shirt, whereas Chōji was surprisingly neatly dressed in pale red and grey (meals out were a thing the Akimichi Clan traditionally took very seriously), and Ino had taken the full opportunity to show off, sky blue one-piece dress, Mikimoto jewellery set and everything.

Before Ino could make the required sarcastic comment, though, the door of the restaurant slammed open, and three intimidating-looking strangers with Hidden Grass forehead protectors strode in as if they owned the place.

The one in the middle, a large, stocky teenager dressed in a well-matched grey and black outfit with touches of green, and with a huge shuriken strapped to his back, slowly scanned the room. “We’ve been told Leaf’s legendary Ino-Shika-Chō trio were here. Where are they?”

Ino knew Shikamaru well enough to notice him tense ever so slightly, then relax, meaning he’d figured out exactly how this face-off was going to go and what they needed to do to win it.

“That would be us,” Shikamaru said. “And you are?”

“I’m _the_ Fūma Ginpachi, greatest genin of Hidden Grass,” the ninja announced, hands on hips, chest puffed out. “And you can’t tell me that a bunch of weaklings like you are _the_ Ino-Shika-Chō?”

“No, I think it’s true, Gin,” the girl next to him spoke up, pale, thin, and with elaborate make-up. Her uniform seemed to feature a lot of leather, and belts, and not very much else. It wasn’t a bad look, though Ino would have added more colour to set off the girl’s complexion. “They match the description. Looks like we came all the way here for nothing.”

“What do you want?” Ino demanded, rising out of her seat.

“We are here,” the third, boring white-clad ninja explained, adjusting his glasses as he stooped slightly so as not to bang his head against the ceiling, “to seize the advantage in the upcoming Chūnin Exam by crushing the spirits of our greatest competition before it even begins. Or that _was_ the plan, anyway.

“Well,” he said in a resigned tone, “at least this won’t take long. So, which one of you is the brains of the outfit, I dread to ask?”

Without a word, Ino and Chōji both pointed at Shikamaru. Shikamaru shrugged.

“Look, do we really have to do this?” he asked. “We’re probably going to face off in the Exam anyway, and fighting now would be such a pain.”

“What’s the matter?” the tall ninja sneered, looking down at Shikamaru. “We haven’t even fought yet, and you’re already prepared to run home crying to Mummy?”

Shikamaru flinched. “Fine. Let’s take this outside.”

-o-

Ginpachi turned to Chōji.

“I suppose I’ll be the one to deal with you. Not that I’m expecting much. Look at you, stuffing your face with barbecue, pretending to be a real man. Why, I bet you’re not even fat, you’re just big-boned!”

Chōji shot up as he prepared to brutally crush the madman who’d pressed his one and only berserk button. “What did you just call me?!”

Then he tilted his head a little, replaying the accusation. “No, wait…”

Ginpachi sat down in Shikamaru’s vacated place. “You’re nothing but a wannabe. _The_ Ginpachi will show you how it’s done.”

He waved a waitress over. “Does this place serve the Leaf Mega Meat Challenge I’ve been hearing so much about?”

“Yes, sir. Um, would you mind putting that shuriken away? It’s scratching the—”

“Great. Bring us two.”

Chōji’s eyes narrowed. He was being challenged on his home ground, in every sense. “Bring me two as well.”

-o-

“So look, Yamanaka, I was gonna take you down and all, but seeing you now, it’d be, like, so lame. I mean, look at you. What’s up with that cheap-looking bracelet?”

“Actually,” Ino said nonchalantly, “it’s Mikimoto, winter collection.” She thought she’d have to summon a medic-nin when she told Dad how much it’d cost.

“Hey, my collar’s Mikimoto too! Spring, though.” The girl paused. “Don’t start thinking we’re on the same level, though. My perfume’s a Shinma original. It’s not even out in the Fire Country.”

“Did you really just go there?” Ino gave her a look that would have been pitying if she’d been able to make it less triumphant. “My family runs the Yamanaka flower shops. We supply Kenzō, and we get their latest products like two seasons in advance. What do you think I’m wearing?”

The other girl winced. “Fine, you got me there. But we’ll see what you have to say after you check out this handbag…”

-o-

“I’m, uh, sorry, sirs, but I’m afraid the restaurant is now completely out of meat. Would you like me to bring you the dessert menu?”

“Jeez, done already? _The_ Ginpachi was only just getting started!”

“Hey, I know this great place right around the corner…”

-o-

_On a bench outside…_

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Ametatsu was aching with disappointment. It wasn’t that Nara was bad as such. If he were, Ametatsu would’ve crushed him like a bug by now, instead of watching the game stretch on and on with no end in sight. But his playing was so… workmanlike, so uninspired. It told Ametatsu absolutely nothing of interest about his opponent. And Nara himself was no better, with that constantly bored expression of his, almost like he was doing Ametatsu a favour just by being there.

Was _this_ the great Ino-Shika-Chō combo, which had alternately inspired and terrified shinobi across the continent anew with every generation?

Ametatsu had been moved, though he’d never admit it out loud, by the audacity of Ginpachi’s plan. They’d travel all the way to the Fire Country. They’d overcome all the strongest genin of Hidden Leaf, and then the other countries, and write the Earth, Wind and Fire combo into the annals of history. Then, when they came home as chūnin who had bested the champions of the Five Great Nations, people would never again slight the name of the Kagami Clan. His father would no longer look down on him for a failure he couldn’t help. And maybe, just maybe, _she_ would finally see him as a man.

Then this. Where was the glory in such a victory? What tales of prowess would Ametatsu bring home with him at this rate? He’d faced Nara Shikamaru of his generation’s Ino-Shika-Chō, and after taking his measure… After _taking his measure_ …

Ametatsu looked down at the board, as if seeing it for the first time.

He looked up at Nara’s face, and saw nothing but apathy there. He looked down at the board again, and mentally replayed every move of the game until now. The horror of the realisation sent adrenaline surging through his veins.

                                                           

Ametatsu’s grandfather liked to say that a good shogi match was a dialogue. Some moves were questions waiting for an answer. Others were bold statements that couldn’t go unchallenged. High-level players might even find the opportunity to share a joke, to pay a compliment or to voice a reproach—all without deviating from their plan for victory.  Ametatsu Sōzen himself considered shogi an ideal medium for flirting, and claimed to be able to seduce women half his age with a single conversation on the game board.

This was not a conversation. This was an interrogation without mercy. Nara hadn’t said a single word about himself since the game began, off the board or on it. Instead, he’d created a silence like a vacuum, forcing Ametatsu to spill secret after secret in pursuit of a checkmate forever just out of sight. How much had Nara already grasped about his personality? Had he seen the degrees of pressure at which Ametatsu’s behaviour shifted, and in which directions? The points where the balance between caution and temptation tilted one way or the other? The ways in which Ametatsu’s love of efficiency conflicted with his desire to win in style? Ametatsu was volunteering answers to all of Nara’s questions _without knowing what those questions were_.

The worst part was that Nara wasn’t trying to hide it. From the lack of personal engagement, to the eye-wateringly neutral playing style, to the way he kept countering Ametatsu’s tactics only to then fail to press his advantage... from the beginning, Nara had been completely open about what he was doing, and even with his grandfather’s unique insight Ametatsu had very nearly missed it.

He had to get out of here _now_. He only hoped it wasn’t already too late.

Ametatsu shot to his feet. “I forfeit.”

He knew what he had to do. It grated like a kunai edge against his nerves, having to prove his father right and shame the Kagami Clan on his very first night in a foreign land. Nor did he relish the humiliation of backing down from a challenge he himself had issued. But weighed against those things was his loyalty to his team, to Ginpachi and to Sera, and no matter how he agonised over it, he already knew which way the scales had to tip.

“I’m very sorry for insulting you and your team,” he said, and bowed a deep bow of abject submission. “I’ll make sure we stay out of your way during the Exam, so… no hard feelings, all right?”

But as he turned to leave, Nara’s voice caught him.

“Wait.”

Ametatsu half-turned. “Yes?”

“You should go for a walk or something. Just for half an hour or so.”

There was no greater imperative at that moment than getting away from Nara Shikamaru, but still, Ametatsu couldn’t resist asking.

“Why?”

And then, for the first time, Nara smiled. Just a little bit, enough that you could miss it if you weren’t paying attention. “Our teammates are enjoying themselves right now. We shouldn’t get in their way.”

Ametatsu left. He’d wanted to go at a dignified walking pace, but in the end he was satisfied that he had at least not broken into a run.

-o-

When Asuma finally arrived, delayed by paperwork, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing at first. No sign of Shikamaru. No sign of Chōji. An empty restaurant, its only two occupants Ino and some foreign girl, thick as thieves, swapping makeup tips and celebrity gossip.

A minute later, he learned that ignorance was bliss.

“They put _how much_ on my tab?!”

-o-

_I say again that he is too valuable a resource to the village to be thrown away like this. The fact that, to date, his unique abilities have remained unexploited is a failure of leadership as far as this village is concerned, not some triumph of ethics._

_Your claims are naïve. Yes, he would make an excellent scapegoat. I grant you that the other nations know little of him, and that everything they know predisposes them to see him as a major threat. They might even believe that he is the source of the coming danger, if we of Leaf tell them so, and offer him up of our own free will. It is plausible enough with the information they have. But the gain from his death will be far less than the opportunities lost._

_How much time do you honestly believe it will buy us? I agree that a war right now, with the threat looming on the horizon, is something we cannot afford. But the united front you speak of is a pipe dream. Convincing the other villages that the threat is gone will not lull them into peace. Rather, when they feel secure they will consider expansion once again. They will seek a use for the forces they have already built up. How much will your pacifist ideals aid us then? One does not prevent a war by showing weakness, but by showing strength._

_That is what I propose. Make use of him, not as a sacrifice—not until it is necessary—but as the asset you have left criminally unutilised until now. If you are not prepared to do so, or if your emotional attachments continue to leave you unable to deal with him objectively, then I am more than prepared to do what must be done. A sufficient show of strength, on this and all other fronts, will force the other villages to fall into line. Not forever, for that too is a pipe dream, but for long enough that we are each still standing tall when it is time to face what’s coming._

_The timing to do this could not be better. Do not squander it. That you finally show a will to action is commendable, but it is all for nothing if you then sacrifice the wrong things, at the wrong time, in pursuit of the wrong goal._

Hiruzen read through Danzō’s message again, and then set it on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By popular request, here is a summary of the laws of ninjutsu referenced in the previous chapter. Note that these are laws governing ninjutsu development and function, not laws of chakra physics. It is possible to find ways around them. For example, all of genjutsu is designed to bypass the Rule of Consent, as are many other chakra-based attacks.
> 
> Rule of Automatic Return: If an individual’s body is in phase space and its real-space anchor is destroyed, the body is immediately returned to the anchor’s location.
> 
> Rule of Consent: Interference with another individual’s chakra will fail unless that individual consents to the technique (a mental process mediated by chakra intelligence) or is unable to resist due to extreme chakra drain.
> 
> Rule of Conservation of Space: Two physical objects cannot occupy the same space, or overlap within it.
> 
> Rule of Stability: A chakra anchor will remain stable only in the form of a solid, and will quickly dissipate if created in the form of a liquid, gas, or most other states of matter.


	16. Chapter 16

“Lord Hiashi wishes to see you at once, my lady.”

Hinata had barely had time to take off her shoes after the long walk, but the immediacy of the summons was not unusual. It was an inevitable side effect of her father using Byakugan-capable branch family members for his personal staff. And just as the maid had only needed a brief Look to locate her, it took only a second for Hinata to establish that she needed to head to the study.

There was an art of sorts to coming when he called, though by now it was second nature rather than careful calculation. If she went too fast, he would be displeased at her unladylike demeanour. If she went too slowly, he would feel that she was failing to show respect. But the correct speed would bring her to the safe middle ground, where he'd say nothing, and simply move on to the business at hand.

“You called for me, Father?”

Hinata quickly scanned her surroundings. There was a cup of tea on the table (good; green tea tended to relax him). He was wearing one of his more formal kimonos (bad; official business regularly left him in a foul temper, especially if the Council was involved). His writing implements were on the desk at a slight angle, perhaps ten degrees (that could go either way; he always left them straight unless there was something on his mind).

Hinata, performing this standard check only half-consciously, got as far as the window, which offered a pleasant view of the farmlands on the outer edge of the village. Which is to say that, for the first time in her life, it was not obstructed by the Harumi Dojo. But before she could process this disorienting fact, her father beckoned her to sit down.

“Thank you for carrying those documents to Tetsu.”

“Not at all, Father.” Hyūga Tetsu was a nice man, if somewhat excitable. He always had a story to tell, despite his semi-permanent station in a guard tower in the middle of nowhere (apparently, he’d done something unwise with a Council member’s granddaughter, but Hinata had never heard the full story).

Her father seemed to study her features for a few seconds, but she couldn't tell what he was looking for. That was worrying. Had she forgotten to do something? Or was her posture off again? He'd told her to take her time, but could she have taken too much?

His next words, however, came completely out of nowhere.

“Daughter, tell me everything you know about Uzumaki Naruto.”

Hinata fought down a surge of panic. How much did he know? How much was safe to tell him? She’d been sworn to secrecy about both Naruto’s intelligence and her training on that life-changing day, and she could never betray Naruto’s trust, not even if it meant… being less than honest with her father.

But what could she say that was true without revealing either of those two things? Even to admit that she was doing ordinary ninja training with Naruto would invite a demand for explanation—why him of all people, rather than a member of her team or one of the elite Hyūga tutors?

Hinata was bad at lying. In truth, she was uncomfortable even with evasion, and while her father accepted perfect honesty from her as his due, he still considered a lack of deceitfulness a major flaw in the future leader of his clan. But no matter her lack of skill, she had to try. If there was one thing that she had to prevent from happening at any cost, it was a confrontation between Naruto and her father.

“H-He’s a genin from my year. He’s in Team Seven, under C-Captain Hatake Kakashi, with Haruno S-Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke.” How much did her father know? What would happen if he caught her concealing the truth? Was Naruto going to be in trouble?

“I see.” Her father’s expression was unreadable. “Anything else?”

What was he looking for? Was there some piece of information that would appease him, or did he _know_ , in which case she was only digging her own grave?

“H-He was bottom of the class at the Academy,” no, you idiot, don’t give him reasons to disapprove of Naruto, “b-but I think he has a perfect m-mission success record n-now he’s graduated.”

What could she tell her father that was true, _and_ didn’t make Naruto look bad in his eyes (the way his pranks, for example, would), _and_ was something she could know without being close to Naruto in any way?

“H-His relations with his teammates—”

“Enough.” Her father’s voice was as sharp as a descending guillotine blade. “So, for his sake, you would go so far as to lie to your own father?”

Hinata froze. It was a test it was a test it was a test. _Of_ _course_ it was a test. It was a test and she’d failed. Again. As usual. It was a test and she’d failed and Naruto was going to be in trouble and she was going to be in trouble and what was she going to do and she couldn’t think of anything and it was a test and she’d failed and she was trying to say something but she didn't know what and she couldn't even run away...

After several seconds of this, her father put her out of her misery.

“I summoned Uzumaki Naruto for an audience earlier today.”

The words had a curious calming effect on Hinata. She felt like someone who’d been desperately clinging to the edge of a cliff, and had finally felt her fingers slip. She was falling. Her struggles were over. There was nothing left for her now but to face the inevitable.

Hinata had been considering how to introduce Naruto to her father—they couldn’t possibly keep the relationship secret from him forever. While she didn’t know exactly what kind of partner her father would have in mind for her, she knew that Hyūga Hiashi was a perfectionist if nothing else. In addition to the obvious requirement that her future husband be a gifted shinobi, he’d probably want someone of noble birth, with plenty of social and political capital, independent wealth, aristocratic refinement and deep-rooted respect for tradition and authority. She had estimated she’d have to spend months tutoring Naruto ( _there_ was a dizzying thought) in the background knowledge a noble would take for granted, from training in basic etiquette to the subtleties of Leaf politics, before he stood even the slightest chance of impressing her father. So many of the things she loved about Naruto—his spontaneity, his irreverent sense of humour, his readiness to defy society's expectations and rules—would only work against him in Hyūga Hiashi’s eyes.

Now all of that was gone. After so many years of effort, Hinata herself had still not managed to meet her father's expectations. What chance would Naruto have, without any warning or preparation?

“Yes, Father?” Her own voice sounded strange in her ears as she prepared to accept his judgement.

Hyūga Hiashi delivered it. “He is arrogant. Headstrong. Naïve. Impertinent to an extent that beggars belief. He has the refinement of an Akimichi child at an all-you-can-eat buffet and the subtlety of the Demon Fox during the Night of Tragedy.”

“However,” her father’s tone softened slightly, “he is neither weak, nor a coward, nor the dimwit I had been led to expect. I have thus given the boy permission to continue his relationship with you for now.”

Hinata had to exert a deliberate effort of will not to collapse beneath the tidal wave of relief. It took a few seconds before she remembered that she'd still concealed the truth from her father, in the face of a direct question, and that he knew.

She watched him contemplate her fate, feeling his gaze trace her face and its sequence of sharply changing expressions as if studying a painting. A clock on the wall ticked as if counting down to the end.

“Do you… still read those novels of yours?”

Hinata blinked. Was her father about to inflict some new sort of punishment on her? As far as she knew, he did not disapprove of the novels. He did disapprove of escapism, and of lost time which could have been spent on training, but he had never once criticised her reading habit itself.

“Y-Yes, Father.”

Her father reached into a drawer of his desk, and withdrew what appeared to be a money pouch. He passed it to Hinata, who accepted it in a slight daze.

“Here. You may purchase some new ones. Or new clothes, I suppose. Or spend it on an outing with the boy. Regardless, it is yours to use as you will.”

It might almost have sounded awkward, were Hyūga Hiashi possessed of the capacity for awkwardness.

“Father?” Hinata asked, totally blindsided.

There was a very brief pause. “Yūhi Kurenai tells me that your mission performance has been improving steadily. This is merely a reward to express my approval of your efforts.”

A second’s silence.

“You may go now.”

“Y-Yes, Father. Thank you, Father.”

Her father looked at her, but if there was something else left to say, it remained unsaid.

“Good night, Father.”

“Good night, Daughter.”

-o-

After what may have been an unwise late-evening nap, Naruto now lay awake in the middle of the night. Hyūga Hiashi might have turned out to be certifiably insane, but that was one of Naruto’s bigger fears out of the way. With his love life now not only existing but going pretty smoothly, it was time to start thinking about how to repay Sakura.

Which meant he had to figure out Sasuke from an angle he’d never considered before. An angle it wouldn't have occurred to him to consider in a thousand years. When it came to romance, Sasuke was a dense and featureless rock wall against which girl after girl inexplicably insisted on beating her head.

Since no obvious ideas presented themselves, and Naruto was unable to get to sleep anyway, it seemed as good a time as any to search his memories for clues.

-o-

“You know, Naruto, we’re going to be old enough for the Academy intake soon.”

“You still want to be a ninja, then?”

“What?! Of course I do. I’m an Uchiha, remember? Excellence as a ninja is in my blood!”

“I dunno, I always pictured you more as one of those Uchiha bakers. Or maybe an Uchiha florist. I know all the shops in the Uchiha Quarter were run by your clan, so you’ve got plenty of options to choose from.”

“I am _not_ going to be a florist! I’m going to become the strongest, most brilliant ninja ever. There are things only I can do, and I can only do them as a ninja.”

“Huh? Like what?”

Sasuke hesitated. “Like reviving my clan… and things.”

“I don’t think being a ninja will help with that,” Naruto told him. “You’d have to get girls to like you, and that’s not happening with that greasy hair of yours.”

“What was that? ‘Please use my unworthy body for taijutsu practice, O great Sasuke’?”

“That’s right. You need to learn how to take a beating, and I’m gonna teach you how!”

“That does it. I’ll show you the power of the Uchiha!”

-o-

“Hey, imbecile,” Sasuke gave the lightest of nods.

“Oh, it’s you, greaseball. Thanks for those books you lent me the other day. They were pretty hard, but I think I learned a lot.” Naruto gave him the thumbs-up. “Say, how come you have such grown-up books around anyway, what with, you know…”

Sasuke shrugged. “I made sure to bring them with me when I moved. I figured if I could at least understand his books, then maybe…” He caught himself. “I mean, they used to belong to my family, and I thought they were interesting, that’s all.

“Anyway,” he said hastily, “what did you make of them?”

“They’re a goldmine!” Naruto grinned. “Lateral thinking? Creativity? Getting rid of preconceptions? Pure solid gold. I already have so many new prank ideas, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I don’t suppose you know where I can get some smoke bombs?”

The depth of Sasuke’s groan was testament to how well he knew Naruto. “What have I _done_?”

-o-

“What kind of idiot designs an alarm clock that only rings once?” Naruto ran through the streets at breakneck speed, various colourful curses picked up from manga running through his head. Today of all days, he could not be late. He made an uncompromising bee-line for the Academy, trampling through gardens, sliding under carts, terrifying pets and beasts of burden alike with his yells of “Coming through!” and prompting countless passers-by to turn around to see who was trying to catch him this time.

His impatience was rewarded, as Sasuke was still outside, standing next to the entrance in a pose of relaxed unconcern which he’d probably been practising for the last fifteen minutes.

“Hey, imbecile,” Sasuke waved him over. “I’m impressed you had the guts to come.”

Naruto’s response was immediate. “Yo, greaseball. I’m impressed you had the brains to find the front door.”

Ritual greetings exchanged, Sasuke rushed Naruto through the Academy.  His momentum carried him through the classroom door just as the teacher was about to close the register, and he paused to catch his breath while Naruto waited for his turn outside.

The other children’s whispers were loud enough for him to hear even from here.

“That’s the Uchiha kid, right? My mum says that he’s bad luck.”

“I don’t like him. He’s always acting like he’s so clever. He thinks he’s better than everyone else.”

“Yeah, he got the top score on the entrance exam, too. I bet he’s gonna be the type that studies all the time and never has any fun, and then makes everyone else look bad.”

After that, it was no surprise that Sasuke’s self-introduction was rather hesitant. The teacher assigned him one of the few remaining seats, and then scowled as he saw his last new student loitering outside the door.

“Tch, Uzumaki Naruto? In _my_ class? Fine, I guess you’d better come in and introduce yourself.”

Those comments from Naruto's new classmates kept running through his head. He’d been hoping that things would be different at the Academy, the place for bright kids studying for the hardest job in the village. It was one of the main reasons he’d decided to follow Sasuke in, even though the ninja profession had already cost him so much. There were other reasons as well, including Sasuke himself, and a certain conversation with the Hokage.

But six more years of being hated and left out of everything? There had to be another way.

Maybe there was. He could see why Sasuke would never have thought of it. But then Sasuke had memories of a real family, and probably higher standards for what he wanted from life. Naruto just wanted things to change.

With a deep breath, he crossed the threshold of the classroom, and left part of himself behind.

Then he tripped over his own feet.

He tumbled into a badly-coordinated forward roll, somehow managed to stagger upright, but then lost his balance and grabbed the teacher in a vain attempt to stay up.

More precisely, he grabbed the teacher’s trousers, pulling them down to the horrified man’s ankles. The class was greeted with a particularly embarrassing pair of polka-dot boxers.

“Eep! Sorry, sir! Here, I’ll help you hide your shame!”

Naruto quickly grabbed a pair of chalkboard erasers.

“Uzumaki-Style Genjutsu: Mist of Misdirection!”

He slammed the two erasers together above his head, generating an enormous cloud of chalk dust—which enveloped the teacher’s head and torso quite effectively, while leaving his boxers on full display.

The teacher urgently bent over to pull up his trousers, but never made it, as he was suddenly wracked with a huge sneezing fit.

“Achoo! Achoo!”

“Oh, sir, a photo just fell out of your pocket. Here, I’ll hold onto it for you until you feel better.”

“What?! No—achoo!”

“Hey, there’s something written on the back. ‘To my sexy little…’ Man, this handwriting is all squiggly and hard to read…”

“Aargh, no, give that back, you little—achoo!”

Sasuke and the rest of the class watched, at first with mouths hanging open, and then with uncontrollable laughter, as their teacher shambled around the classroom, trying to pull his trousers up with one hand and grab Naruto with the other, with both efforts (as well as a number of curses) being constantly disrupted by violent sneezing.

By the end of the day, Naruto had been unanimously promoted from class pariah to class clown. And while he, and his children, and his children’s children, were now officially in detention for the rest of their lives, none of the teachers seemed to realise that this only gave him more time to plan.

-o-

Yes, it must have been then that things changed. He and Sasuke never stopped being rivals, but something disappeared around that time, something Naruto never found with anyone else at the Academy. Maybe Sasuke had just been too proud to hang out with Naruto's idiot persona, or maybe, with the passage of time, he’d been taken in by the act like the rest of them.

They’d been much more alike before the Academy. Brighter than anyone else their age and proud of it, two best friends fighting to keep the shadows of rejection and loneliness at bay with sharp wit, all-consuming intellectual curiosity, and a certain easygoing arrogance, all of which would regularly boil over into competition.

It was like the Academy had taken a single boy and split him in two. Naruto became an incorrigible, endlessly inventive joker, his ambition limited to pranks and games with which to amuse himself and his peers, as well as to frustrate those in authority. Sasuke became a cold, elitist lone wolf, driven by a higher goal that led him to push himself ever harder even as he pushed his inferiors away.

But none of this was helping, and was in fact only making Naruto feel melancholy. What it came down to was that Naruto and Sasuke had never talked about girls, not before the Academy, and not during it (when they never really talked for real at all) or after graduation. Naruto had nothing concrete to go on when it came to figuring out how to get Sakura a date—unless a miracle occurred and she stopped insisting the date be with Sasuke.

His mind eventually began to wander, bouncing between old memories and new prank—er, technique—ideas, and the last thing to pass through it before he fell asleep was pride at his successful handling of the Hyūga crisis.

-o-

“How could you, Naruto?!”

It was the following morning, and Naruto was facing the one thing he hadn't expected right now: an upset Hinata.

“I don’t understand,” he said plaintively. “What did I do wrong?”

Hinata was trembling. “What were you _thinking_? H-How could you read that invitation, and decide it was probably a t-trap, and go anyway?!”

“But… But what else could I do?”

Hinata raised her hands in frustration. “You could have sent a shadow clone!”

“But there’d be no point in going if I was just going to offend him by ignoring his instructions!”

There was a second’s hesitation from Hinata.

“Th-Then you should have offended him!”

Her reaction caught him completely off guard. Hinata herself seemed surprised by the words coming out of her mouth.

“Hinata, I don’t understand,” Naruto repeated. “Why is this such a big deal? I mean, I was really tired, and maybe I could have planned things out a bit better, but I thought I could handle it, and I was right. And now everything is better and we don’t have to keep our relationship secret anymore. So what’s wrong?”

Hinata looked at him, her eyebrows knotted in an expression of frustration at his apparent denseness. Gradually, her trembling subsided.

“You thought it was a trap,” she said. “You thought it was a trap and my father wanted to kill you, and you went anyway. Naruto, if you’d offended my father, we could have patched things up with him eventually, even if it took months or years. But if you’d died… If you’d died…”

She trailed off. Her eyes glistened slightly.

Her distress began to make sense.

Naruto beckoned her over to sit next to him on the bed. He took her hand.

“I’m sorry I scared you. But I’m not going to die, and I’m not going to leave you. I promise.”

The look she gave him wasn’t what he expected. It was still frustrated, and also a little sad.

“I’m not asking you for that sort of promise, Naruto,” she said quietly, “and you can’t make it. This isn’t one of your manga where just saying, ‘I promise I’ll come back alive’ makes it happen. We’re ninja, and risking death is part of our job. You can’t make that go away.”

She took a long, slow breath.

“It’s not that I’m upset because you were in danger. I know my father would never really hurt you. But you didn’t know. You went into mortal danger when you didn’t have to, and I don’t understand why, and it scares me.”

Why _had_ he gone into mortal danger when he didn’t have to? In the cold light of lucid, non-exhausted thought, the idea that he’d risk his life to obey Hyūga Hiashi’s demands just in order to avoid offending him didn’t sound all that convincing. It wasn’t rational, and it wasn't even his style. Yes, if Lord Hyūga hated him, he might not be able to date Hinata anymore. But he couldn’t date Hinata if he was dead either. In fact, even a low risk of death was far worse than a high risk of offending Hinata’s father—not only because damaged relations could be restored, while death was final, but because if he died he lost everything, including things that had nothing to do with his love life.

So what had he really been thinking? Naruto was aware of the presence and warmth of Hinata by his side. Would he have thought to ask this question without her? Not today, but at least eventually? Or would it have stayed a permanent blind spot in his consciousness? How many other blind spots did he have?

He pictured the letter and tried to recall what it had been like to read it, and the thoughts and feelings he’d had as he decided how to respond. No, he realised with a flash of horrified insight, it hadn’t even been a decision. It had been a reflex. Hyūga Hiashi was challenging him, saying that, under these conditions, Naruto couldn’t beat him. He had to be proved wrong.

“I’m sorry,” Naruto said. “I’ve only just realised, but I guess I took it as a challenge. I felt like I had to win, and I didn’t really think about the possibility of turning it down.”

Hinata nodded, as if that made sense. She didn’t look any happier.

“Naruto, I’m not… I’m not asking you not to risk your life. You can’t even do that as a normal ninja, and you’re going to be Hokage one day. But if you’re going to make a promise, then promise me this. When you have to put yourself in danger, will you try as hard as you can to think of a better way first?”

“I promise,” Naruto said, feeling a growing sense of shame that Hinata had needed to tell him something so basic. Become Hokage? It was like he was still learning how to be a genin.

And then they were simply sitting next to each other on his bed, hands held, and several different kinds of awkwardness began to compete for dominance.

After a few seconds, Naruto stood up with the pretext of putting the letter away. “So, uh, do you want to hear what happened yesterday?”

“Y-Yes, please.”

 

“That was terribly rude of him!” Hinata said indignantly. It was a rare treat to hear Hinata’s indignant voice, a flicker of assertive behaviour she’d never yet used on her own behalf.

“But well done for not reacting to any of his insults. He must have been very impressed with your patience.”

“What insults?” Apart from a brief, wordless sense of mortal peril during the second half of their meeting, and the actual mortal peril at the end, it had to be admitted that Lord Hyūga had been coolly civil throughout.

“Oh,” Hinata said, not looking him in the eye. “Um, never mind.”

 

“Naruto, have you ever heard of the humility game?”

“No. What is it?”

“Well, we don't really talk about it because that's supposed to be in bad taste, but I guess you'll need to know sooner or later. So you know how when two warriors meet for the first time, sometimes they'll exchange boasts until they decide which one is superior? Noble people do that too, except they don't boast at each other because they think that would be crude. Instead they compete to see who can be the most humble. And the winning move is when you're so humble that the other person can't go lower without being rude or breaking the unwritten rules.”

Naruto soaked this in.

“You’re saying… he set it up so that I would challenge him to a game only nobles know about, play exactly according to the rules, and then _force_ him to win as soon as I was doing well enough.”

Hinata nodded.

“That bas—I, uh, mean, how annoying of your father to do that.”

“He has a refined sense of humour. I'm sorry.”

 

“You… really said that? About me?”

“Yeah, well, something like that, I guess. I mean… it wasn’t exactly… you know…” Naruto was busy making both of them tea, mostly as an excuse to turn away from Hinata and not let her see that his face was the colour of Sasuke’s best Great Fireball Technique. He could not for the life of him explain why confessing his romantic feelings before the ice-cold avatar of aristocratic disdain was easier than talking about them to his gentle and caring girlfriend.

 

“He did _what_?!”

 

“ _You did WHAT?!_ ”

 

On her way home, Hinata reflected.

Hinata’s father had tried to kill her boyfriend, probably not for real. Hinata’s boyfriend had tried to kill her father, probably for real, but in self-defence and mostly as a distraction while he tried to escape. He had also razed a priceless reconstruction of a dojo dedicated to “Godhand” Harumi, the legendary Hyūga matriarch said to have reached One Thousand and Twenty-Four Strikes.

As a result of these events, Hinata’s father had approved the relationship.

Apparently, Naruto was right. Manga _was_ an accurate guide to how romantic relationships worked in the real world. Hinata found herself wishing she were of age to drink alcohol.

There was something else too. After Hinata had given Naruto a carefully edited account of her meeting with her father (passing over family dynamics that she wasn't yet ready to discuss), he'd asked her a question. It kept going around and around in her head, demanding an answer that she couldn’t begin to formulate.

He'd asked her, “Why didn’t your father say he gave _you_ his permission to date _me_?”

-o-

“This was not the agreement, sir. When I initially recommended Uzumaki Naruto for participation in the Chūnin Exam, it was explicitly on condition that he first undergo a full psychological and physical evaluation by a Leaf demon host expert.” Kakashi held up a copy of the recommendation form, which contained a small novel in the “team leader comments” section.

“And he will,” the Hokage replied. “I am just as keen for that to happen as you are. But you know who our expert is, and how difficult that man is to get hold of. Team Twenty-Four say they will have his current location within the week, and then we’ll be able to bring him here, or send Naruto to him, without any further delay.”

“That will be _after_ the majority of the Chūnin Exam.” Kakashi’s voice was tense with suppressed frustration. “In light of the events of his last mission—”

“I gave him a comprehensive debriefing,” the Hokage cut Kakashi off, “and am satisfied that there is no danger of him willingly tapping into that power again. I have also confirmed that the seal continues to prevent any accidental leakage.”

“With respect, sir, that is precisely the kind of judgement for which we need the expert in the first place. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the awakening protocols?”

“No, you don’t.”

It was a futile question. The Hokage knew, had to know better than anyone, why you did not debrief an unstable and potentially traumatised demon host in the field. If your unprepared debriefing pressed the wrong buttons, reopened the wrong wounds… well, there was a reason why there was no longer such a village as Hidden Swamp.

“But those same protocols state,” the Hokage went on, “that in the absence of a suitably qualified expert—and as you know, we've been in no position to train a new one—I have to make the final call as to whether Naruto is fit to continue serving as a shinobi. I am making that call.”

Kakashi knew he was close to overstepping his bounds, but he had to ask. “Why is this so important, sir? Why can’t we let him skip this exam, receive a proper evaluation, and then train so that his success in the next one is guaranteed?”

The Hokage gave him a weary look. “Because the eyes of the entire world are on Leaf, and it is essential right now that we make a show of strength. That must include Naruto, the genin who was able to fight a jōnin as a near-equal. With matters as they are, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by demonstrating his ability as a shinobi to the other villages.

“Now,” he reached for yet another set of forms, as if to indicate how busy he was, “was there anything else?”

“Actually, yes. There is still the matter of Haku.”

“Zabuza’s apprentice?”

Kakashi nodded. “Exact details aside, the fact of the matter is that Naruto failed to report their interactions to his team leader, even after he became aware of Haku's true identity. If it hadn’t been for the awakening protocols, I would have dealt with it as soon as the mission was over. Are those still in effect, or can I proceed?”

“I suppose this _is_ a textbook case of becoming emotionally compromised,” the Hokage sighed. “And if there is one thing Naruto does not need, it is for us to encourage his tendency to ignore authority. However, I believe we’ve missed our chance.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Events overtook us. What will you say to him now, Kakashi? Will you punish him for the decisions he made regarding Haku, when he has exploited those decisions to save your life in court? Will you tell him that there is some plan you could have devised if you'd known about Haku, one with a better outcome than what Naruto was able to bring about? No, to punish him now would make him forever label you a hypocrite. Far from restoring discipline, it would alienate him, and that is something we cannot afford to do.”

The Hokage’s expression softened as he saw the uncertainty that must have been written on Kakashi’s face. “I know,” he went on. “This isn’t optimal. But it _is_ tolerable. The usual concerns—impacts on wider discipline, accusations of favouritism—do not apply to such a deeply classified mission. That only leaves his teammates. Do you believe that our failure to punish Naruto will have negative implications for them?”

Kakashi considered. “No, sir. Though I do believe I should speak to all three at some point to make certain they know the protocol for such situations. For now, however, they are going to have enough on their plates.”

-o-

The sun shone brightly in the morning sky, which must have been a great relief for three jōnin and one vaguely familiar-looking chūnin (probably one of those two guys who somehow kept landing all the most boring jobs in the village), given that the Chūnin Exam reception desk they were staffing was outdoors.

Naruto was excited, and a little anxious. This would be the turning point of his career. Instead of coming out to people one by one, he would demonstrate his intelligence in a blaze of exam success, taking everyone by surprise, and incidentally enjoying a significant competitive advantage over both fellow Leaf genin and any foreigners enterprising enough to have done some research. At the same time, becoming a chūnin was an essential step towards the ultimate goal of Hokage, and would come with glorious new rights and clearance levels.

Sasuke, who’d arrived first, seemed similarly fired up, though he’d brushed off Naruto’s attempts to start a conversation (well, verbal sparring). Sakura’s presence was more surprising.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d make it,” Naruto said.

“Well, I thought about it, and I guess I decided that in the end somebody has to keep you guys out of trouble. Besides, it’s a test, and I rock tests, which is more than can be said for a certain someone who never even passed his Academy finals.”

Naruto opened his mouth to argue, but was cut off by one of the jōnin, a blonde, ponytailed woman Naruto didn’t remember having seen before.

“State your name and team affiliation.”

“Uzumaki Naruto, Team Seven under Hatake Kakashi.”

“Uchiha Sasuke, Team Seven under Hatake Kakashi.”

“Haruno Sakura, Team Seven under Hatake Kakashi.”

 

The jōnin did a small double-take on hearing Sasuke’s name, but she didn’t comment.

“This is your final chance to back out of the Chūnin Exam,” she said. “As soon as I enter your names in this log here, you are officially examinees, and subject to the Exam’s full rules, regulations and testing procedures. Are you sure you want to proceed?”

“Yeah!”

“I am.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All right,” the woman said as she wrote something down on a scroll. “Since you’ve all agreed, you have my congratulations. If any of you had refused, now or at an earlier stage, your entire team would have been rendered ineligible. The Chūnin Exam tests teams as well as individuals.”

Sakura nodded. “And Kakashi-sensei didn’t tell us in advance so the people who wanted to take part wouldn’t put pressure on anyone who didn’t.”

“That’s correct.” The jōnin started to walk away. “Follow me.”

However, now that Naruto had found himself faced with that rarest of phenomena, an authority figure being forthcoming with information, he intended to milk it for all it was worth. “But if you’ve told us now, what about next time? In the unlikely event that we fail, I mean?”

The woman reluctantly slowed down to let him catch up.

“In that case, you’ll have some idea of what the Chūnin Exam is like, and will be able to talk it over and make a group decision. But based on past experience, this way works best for new applicants.”

“But if one of us had said no,” Naruto pointed out, “then we'd be fresh examinees next time, but we'd still know that one person refusing had got us disqualified.”

Naruto could see it, the minute slump of the shoulders that marked the jōnin’s realisation that the flow of questions wasn’t going to stop any time soon.

“If one of you had refused, I would use some excuse to get rid of the rest as well,” the woman told him. “There’s a standard list of believable and hard-to-check ones, although I’m technically allowed to disqualify people simply for being too obnoxious. While the Chūnin Exam doesn’t normally test them, social skills are important for a ninja too.”

Naruto chose not to get the hint.

“But what if—”

Unfortunately, his time was up. The other two jōnin, coming up from behind, took symmetrical positions around his guide, and at her nod all three began to make the same series of complex hand seals.

“What was that?” Sasuke asked suspiciously when they were done.

“Standard scanning array. In case any of you had the bright idea of letting your jōnin big brother take the test for you. Ah, no offence, Uchiha.”

Sasuke acknowledged the apology with a particularly apathetic shrug.

“All right,” she said. “I’m going to take you through to your waiting area. Access to the assembly hall is staggered, so you’ll need to wait for around–”

A series of explosions echoed in the distance. Several columns of smoke began to rise from somewhere in the middle of the village, some of them in frightening chemical colours.

“Is that part of the test?” Sakura asked hesitantly.

The jōnin gave her a meaningful look and vanished in the characteristic blur of the Body Flicker Technique.

The three members of Team Seven stared at each other.

“It’s probably just some kind of accident, right?” Sakura asked. “Poorly-made explosive tags or something?”

“If you mess up while making explosive tags, they’re practically guaranteed _not_ to go off,” Naruto told her. “Making them reactive is the hard part.”

“How do you know that?” Sakura asked in a voice that strongly suggested she didn’t want to know the answer.

“I read about the theory of how to make them after I decided it’d be good to have a bunch around in case of emergency. But it turns out even if I could do it myself, you need special clearance for some of the materials, and can you see anyone allowing _me_ to make explosives anytime soon?”

Sakura snorted, the distraction helping to reduce her anxiety a little. “Yeah, I don’t think we need a second Leaf Crater just yet.”

Sasuke didn’t take part in the conversation, but started to check his gear one more time. Having nothing to do but wait, the other two soon followed his example.

Finally, the jōnin returned, her face pale. “We’re in a state of emergency. Your nearest meeting place is Number Four. Go there for further instructions. Don’t ask questions. Go.”

“What’s going on?” Naruto asked before he could help himself.

The jōnin gave him a look of the purest exasperation, but nevertheless explained. “The village is under attack by a coalition of mercenary groups. Akatsuki, Crimson Web, Dogs of War, maybe Kōtsū as well.”

Sasuke slowly looked up from the ninja wire he was adjusting. “Did you say Akatsuki? Are you absolutely sure?”

“Pretty damn sure,” the jōnin said through gritted teeth. “The invaders are being led by Uchiha Itachi. He's duelling the Hokage.”


	17. Chapter 17

The jōnin looked over them as if taking note of their faces one last time, and then she was gone.

The rest of the equipment check was conducted in silence.

At least outwardly. Inside, Sasuke’s mind burned.

Itachi. Itachi. Itachi. Kinslayer. Guardian. Archenemy. Idol. The last bond left to Sasuke, to be severed with his own hand. Everything in his life had been building up to this moment. Today, he would exact the answers he was due, and mete out judgement on the man who had abandoned him.

Wait. Naruto might interfere. A boy who loved only himself, and lived only for himself. A boy who had proved truly unpredictable. Sasuke couldn’t afford the time to fight his way past him, not now when every second counted.

Sasuke glanced at Naruto out of the corner of his eye. The opening was there. Casually, without any conspicuous movements, he laid out a certain pattern of ninja wire on the ground, flicking a few loops back over his shoulder to a nearby tree.

Preparations complete. Sasuke activated his Sharingan, leaned forward into running stance, and stopped suppressing his killing intent. It was time to fulfil his destiny.

As suspected, Naruto reached out to grab him. “Sasuke, you can't go after Itachi. You'll—”

In one swift motion, Sasuke pulled hard on the concealed wire. The design was flawless, an unused counter-prank now invested with a more profound meaning. Naruto flew backwards, slamming against the tree, hands tied apart and waist bound tightly to the trunk.

“Shut up, Naruto,” Sasuke growled. “You don't have the right to say _anything_ to me.”

Turning his back on his team, he leaned forward, arms out behind him in the classic ninja running posture, and prepared to head for the Hokage’s Office building to begin his search.

The second he began to move, though, his sleeve snagged on something. Impatient with the tiniest delay, he turned around to brush it off—and saw someone he’d forgotten to factor into his planning.

-o-

“Let go of me.” The words were cold, low, dismissive. Sakura felt as if at any moment that focused lance of killing intent might turn to aim at her instead of its intended target.

But she couldn’t let him go face Itachi. She couldn’t. Not only because they were soulmates, and until he realised it, it was her responsibility to protect their destiny. Not only because they were teammates, and she knew with the certainty of a thousand lessons that looking out for your team was part of what made you a ninja. But also because something in her, some part of her that wasn’t a student, wasn’t a genin, wasn’t a rebellious daughter or a lovelorn twelve-year-old or even Inner Sakura, whispered: this, _this_ was the rite of passage meant just for her, and if she wasn’t capable of doing this one thing, then she might as well not exist.

A peculiar mixture of resolve and desperation focused her mind. She, Haruno Sakura, had it in her to get through to him, even if she’d already failed to do it dozens of times. She had to believe that somewhere inside her, somehow, she had what it took to be more than Team Seven’s dead weight.

She had the irrational, untamed confidence of Inner Sakura. She had the courage with which she’d drawn the full attention of an unstoppable monster. She had the boundless intelligence that had conquered exam after exam. She had the defiance that she'd been able to awaken, just once, to stop being Ino's timid little sister and start being herself. And finally, she had true love, which was sometimes made of more than desires and daydreams.

Sakura spoke with all the conviction she could muster. She had to be slow enough to give her words weight, yet fast enough that Sasuke would hear them all before he could pull away.

“Sasuke, if you've ever respected me for _anything_ , if you've ever once thought of me as a member of Team Seven, then _please_ listen to me. You owe me that much.”

He was looking at her now. He was _looking at her_ , as if she was actually there, actually a person. Under different circumstances, it would have been breathtaking.

“Thirty seconds.” His voice was still cold, but he was speaking to _her._ Sakura dared to hope.

“If you face Itachi now, you'll be throwing away your chance at revenge.”

She had his attention. Now she had to persuade him, with no time to create a structured bullet-point argument, only an improvised attempt to shape her words into something convincing as they continued to stream out of her mouth.

“If you go out there right now, you'll be a genin trying to fight an S-rank criminal. You'll die. You're strong, you're the best of us, but you've only had a few years at the Academy. You've only been a ninja for a matter of months. If you fight Itachi now, he’ll kill you. Not because you're not good enough, but because he's had time to grow to his full strength and you haven't.”

Sakura wanted to have perfect control of her emotions the way Sasuke did, but she was showing him her true feelings for the first time, and she might as well have tried to hold back a tsunami.

“And if you die... If you die, then that amazing jōnin, the best ninja ever, the one who's going to sweep away Uchiha Itachi with a single wave of his hand—he'll never exist. Instead of your revenge, instead of _anything_ , there'll just be a tombstone somewhere saying, ‘Uchiha Sasuke, genin. Died heroically in defence of the village.’”

It began to feel less like she was trying to express her feelings, and more like they were pouring out of her. She couldn't stop them if she wanted to, only attempt to steer their flow to try to make them say what a rational argument couldn't.

“I know I've been as much use to you as a chocolate teapot. I know you've had to protect me when you could have been fighting on your own terms. And maybe that's reason enough to ignore me. But here and now, just this once, let me be Team Seven's voice of common sense. Let me do the only thing I can do, and give you another...” she briefly flailed for words, “another way of seeing the world. Not as a genius, not as a visionary, but as someone who can only see what's there.”

Sasuke looked at her for an endlessly long moment. He looked her in the eyes for the first time she could remember, maybe even the first time ever.

“...Fine.”

Sakura gave an exhausted smile. “After all, if you die, who's going to save us if Naruto ever manages to become Hokage?”

-o-

After a brief battle with temptation, the two finally decided to untie the third member of their team.

Having waited for a moment when Sasuke was distracted, Sakura leaned over to Naruto, and said in a low voice laced with steel, “That was personal. And you didn't hear it. Not a single stray syllable. Are we clear?”

Naruto shivered. “Yes, ma'am.”

“So,” he said with considerably more cheerfulness than he felt, “anyone up for a refreshing run to Meeting Point Four?”

-o-

There were perhaps twenty ninja at Meeting Point Four, most of them genin. A couple of foreign teams were scattered among the Leaf majority, looking even more bewildered and disoriented than everyone else.

A one-eyed chūnin counted the numbers, consulted a scroll, and loudly cleared his throat.

“A group of mercenary ninja have penetrated Leaf's defensive barrier, and are currently attacking the village. As genin, your sole task will be to oversee the evacuation of the civilian population. You are not, I repeat, _not_ to attempt to engage the enemy in any way. If they come to you, you are to lead them off, distract them—do whatever you can to keep them away from the civilians until backup can be dispatched to your location.

His eyes swept over the assembled group. “Those of you from other villages: I remind you that your superiors all signed agreements before the Chūnin Exam, committing you to defending Hidden Leaf in the event of an emergency exactly like this one. This is a mission backed by your villages of origin, and you are expected to lay down your lives to complete it if need be.”

Naruto normally considered politics as exciting as collecting ball-bearings after a successful prank (the things rolled into the most inaccessible places, and Naruto had to retrieve every last one because he couldn’t afford to buy more). But after Kakashi-sensei told him about the Chūnin Exam, it had occurred to him that the future greatest Hokage could benefit from the opportunity to observe international relations in action from the comfort of his own village, even if he was doing so as a ground-level pawn rather than a player. Thus, after a flurry of last-minute reading, he was aware that the exam was a diplomatic tool, a means for villages to establish relative power levels (which would then inform conventional negotiation) without the need to spend resources on direct conflict. As Onigahara Tariki had said, skill was worth more than numbers when it came to ninja warfare, and so the two strongest indicators of a village’s power were its overall training quality and its number of jōnin. The filtering stages served to show off the former, and the finals, which by definition featured some of the best genin in the world, could be taken as an early forecast of the latter.

While being the host village (and thus determining the content of the exam) was a massive advantage, it would be insane to invite foreign military forces past your defences without a guarantee of safety. Thus, all participating villages had to pledge to defend the host during the Chūnin Exam if necessary, formally from external threats but implicitly from each other. The idea that they were under attack by a force that deemed itself powerful enough to challenge this united front sent a chill down Naruto’s spine.

“One final instruction,” the chūnin added. “Leaf Teams Four and Seventeen have been eliminated by a new Kōtsū ninjutsu reportedly called the 'Clone Disruption Technique'. Do _not_ under any circumstances use clones until countermeasures have been developed and delivered to you.”

Naruto winced. He'd just been thinking that a few dozen shadow clones would make guiding the civilians a whole lot easier, not to mention being able to assign some to protection and some to combat. Then he winced again as he realised the specific implications for Uzumaki-style combat.

“Leaf Team Seven: Third District, Route Fourteen, Evacuation Plan Two.”

It was time to go.

-o-

“Look, kid, you've got nothing to worry about. The world's strongest ninja are out there taking care of the bad guys right now. And _you_ are under the personal protection of Uzumaki Naruto, ultimate badass and future Hokage. Oh, and those two over there may look pretty lame, but you can tell they're strong because they're on my team. Now wipe your nose and go help your grandma up the hill.”

“I'm sorry, ma'am, but you really can't take a wheelbarrow into the shelter. Yes, I'm sure those are priceless family heirlooms in there, but the shelters simply can't accommodate...”

“Put that hoe down and get back in line _now_. I'm here to protect you, but I _will_ knock you out if your idiotic posturing slows down the evacuation for one more second.”

It was gradually becoming apparent to Team Seven why genin were given so much practice with tedious menial tasks that seemed to last forever. The evacuation wasn't glamorous. It wasn't exciting. It wasn't exactly difficult either, but it just kept going on and on, and half the people they were guiding were scared out of their wits, and the rest were burning with outrage, and both groups seemed to have nothing better to do than to take out their feelings on the very people trying to help them. Every few minutes, Naruto found himself tempted by the fact that while everyone was supposed to arrive at the shelters as safely and quickly as possible, nowhere was it specified that all of them had to be conscious.

The only good thing about the endless herding of human cats was that it kept everybody busy. Naruto didn't have time to dwell on the fact that Old Man Hokage, his alternating nemesis and victim, the closest thing he'd ever had to a grandfather, might be dead, and that any number of the people he knew might join him before the day was over.

It was when the evacuation was nearly over, with one last group of people to move to the checkpoint and hand over to the shelter guards, that something interesting finally happened. A battered-looking figure in torn black robes, with red cloud patterns marred by equally red blood, staggered into the light, leaning heavily on some long, bandaged object. His pale grey-blue skin and ragged breathing suggested that he'd been hit by some sort of powerful draining ninjutsu. Upon seeing the three ninja, he turned, and began to slowly flee back where he came from.

Naruto glanced to the side, and met Sakura's eyes. The same thought, “The three of us can take him”, flickered between them, and doubtless through Sasuke's head as well.

It was an opportunity to make a _real_ contribution to the greater battle going on around them. To win the glory and acclaim that they’d been supposed to get by beating the Chūnin Exam. To earn the valuable combat experience that they’d been cheated out of. After hours of unbearable tedium, the temptation was almost overpowering.

But Naruto knew, and so did the others, that even if it only took a few seconds to defeat the enemy, for those few seconds the civilians would be defenceless. A single area-of-effect technique could kill dozens. And while Naruto did not for a second believe in the Will of Fire and its commandment to protect, he didn’t believe in pyrrhic victories either.

Team Seven watched the invader warily, but did not move to engage as he staggered away.

Then, at the very last second, the man turned around. Coughing up blood as he collapsed to the ground, he had time for one final act. “If I die, you die with me!”

He snapped his hands together.

“Water Element: Water Bullet Technique!”

The globe of water was enormous, much bigger than Zabuza's, big enough to be visibly slowed by air resistance. With unerring precision, the enemy ninja spat it right at the middle of the crowd of civilians.

“Fire Element: Great Fireball Technique!”

Sasuke's counter was near-instant. But Water continued to beat Fire in the circle of elements, and though slowed and reduced, the water bullet was still going to hit its target.

 

Naruto could see it with agonising clarity. A water bullet that huge wouldn't just kill the people it hit directly. If they were lucky, the healthy adults on the edge of the concussive blast might get away with a few broken bones. But the frail, and anyone closer to the point of impact… they wouldn’t stand a chance.

There was no time to arm and throw an explosive tag (and, at the speeds involved, he probably wouldn't connect). Placing and transforming clones would take even longer, and that was if he wasn’t in range of the Clone Disruption Technique. There was no possibility of swapping with the thing, for any number of reasons, and no objects within line of sight that could be instantly adapted into anything useful.

On the other hand, the unhelpful voice of spatial intuition whispered to him, a trained and hardened ninja body, positioned and braced just so, _might_ be able to deflect the missile's trajectory by just one or two crucial metres.

This wasn't _fair_. It wasn't supposed to end here, to some random invader's random technique. He had so many plans, so many ambitions, so much—finally—to lose. He was supposed to beat this stupid world, to blaze a trail of genius that would change it forever, not die in the street for the sake of people who'd spent their lives tormenting him.

By the time all of this went through his conscious mind, however, he’d already made the snap decision. For once, Naruto cursed his intelligence as he sent all his chakra down to his feet.

-o-

It was amazing, the things a person thought of at the last moment.

She wouldn't have to worry now about that library book she couldn't find.

She'd finally made Sasuke look at her, and now she'd never find out what that meant.

She'd had her last conversation with her parents, and it had been an argument about chores.

She was in the middle of making a heroic sacrifice, and Naruto _still_ managed to get in her way.

-o-

Sasuke couldn't die here. He had to live, to face Itachi again and to revive his clan. He couldn't do something as, as absurdly unimaginably stupid as throwing himself in front of a moving ball of destruction just because there was no time to come up with any other options.

He couldn't die here. His life was _important._ There'd be nobody to take up his mantle, nobody to find out the truth, or restore justice, or bring the Uchiha Clan back from the edge of annihilation.

And it would take so little to save his life. All he had to do was be somewhere else while the civilians, the men and the women, the elderly and the children, were massacred by a force against which they had no possible defence.

Just like last time.

-o-

Three fractions of the same second. Three bodies in one line, bracing for impact. Three tiny flashes of pride, that all of Team Seven had made the same choice.

Then nothing.


	18. Chapter 18

Morino Ibiki was not a man who could afford to care what others thought of him. His profession commanded deep fear, or at best a wary respect, and to reach too far beyond that would be to compromise his own effectiveness. However, on this one day, he allowed himself to feel a measure of satisfaction as the other examiners unanimously praised him as a miracle worker.

For he had accomplished the impossible: every single genin, from every single village, was rallying behind a single cause, their many differences forgotten in the name of a greater goal. Though it was, perhaps, a shame that this goal was the slow and excruciating death of all Chūnin Exam organisers.

“I thought for sure I was going to die!”

“How dare they make me choose between a bunch of nobodies and my little sister?!”

“Uchiha bloody Itachi? _Really_?”

“I only said all that stuff because I thought it was the end!” (a sharp look from a teammate) “But I’m glad she said yes!”

Team Seven, by contrast, were completely silent. Sasuke was quietly simmering, and he and Sakura wouldn't look at each other. This unfortunately left Sakura, sitting in the middle, with altogether too much Naruto in her field of view. Naruto himself was making a mental note to have all of Leaf's genjutsu experts assigned to permanent dishwashing and cat-wrangling duties as soon as he became Hokage.

But if Kakashi had been there (instead of metaphorically beating his head against the wall in the aftermath of his talk with the Hokage), he would have noticed that the three of them were sitting ever so slightly closer together than usual.

-o-

After the initial waves of righteous fury had subsided, the genin seemed to suddenly remember that they were preparing for a competitive examination, and began to apply themselves to the task of scouting out the opposition. Before Naruto could join in, though, an older genin blocked his way, looming over the still-seated boy in a calculated gesture of intimidation.

Of course, there was only one way to respond to that. Naruto lounged back in his seat with an expression of general satisfaction, for all the world like a yakuza boss receiving a petitioner about to beg for just one more month's extension. In addition to completely ruining the other genin's attempt to set the tone of the interaction, this had the added advantage of letting Naruto see his face without having to crane his neck. The genin's pale, pupil-less eyes left no doubt as to his clan affiliation.

“I am Hyūga Neji,” the boy began, speaking with a flat tone that seemed to suggest he didn’t consider Naruto worthy of emotion. “I am cousin to Lady Hinata, and I am going to give you your only warning: do not even think of abusing her trust to sabotage her performance in this exam. She may be naïve enough to see something worthwhile in you, but you and I both know that you are nothing but a disgrace to the very name of shinobi. Your attempts to gain undue influence over Lady Hinata are both transparent and despicable, and if you continue failing to respect your betters… I will teach you the full wrath of the Hyūga.”

By the end of the speech, Naruto was more amused than angry. At the same time, he distinctly felt that he'd had enough of the Hinata Protection Squad and its efforts.

“Point A,” he said, “Hinata can protect herself without you trying to be her samurai in shining armour, and she certainly has better judgement than _you_ are showing right now.

“Point Two,” Naruto continued, enjoying Neji’s brief wince, “I've faced the head of your clan in battle. The fact that you think _you_ can intimidate me would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

“In conclusion: you are wasting my time. Why don't you go and do something that might actually help your team, and I'll come kick your ass the next time I have nothing better to do.”

For a second, Neji just stared at him, like a clone whose AI had encountered a fatal error. As a Hyūga, it was entirely possible that this was his first time encountering such total disrespect. After spitting out some incoherent response along the lines of “You'll regret this”, he stormed off to rejoin his team.

Naruto was aware that he'd made an enemy this day. But that was fine. He was never going to be friends with that arrogant prick anyway, and he'd just laid the groundwork for inducing incoherent rage in someone whose abilities were one of the few hard counters to the Uzumaki Style.

Since a clash with Neji now appeared inevitable, it seemed like a good time to check out the other two members of his team. One was an unremarkable girl with an odd name he could never quite remember, currently busy performing equipment maintenance on the contents of a medium-sized armoury. Something about her look of total concentration suggested that the rest of the assembly hall didn't exist as far as she was concerned.

The other member was unmistakable. Rock Lee, the one genin whose outfit was more ridiculous than Naruto's, was known to every ninja in the village as the genetically-unrelated clone of the veteran jōnin Maito Gai. The latter was a taijutsu master obsessed with what he called “the burning passion of youth”, and everyone else called a decades-long midlife crisis. He also claimed to be Kakashi-sensei's rival, though Naruto considered this doubtful, as it would involve Kakashi-sensei being excited about something other than his dubious novels.

What both master and apprentice shared, apart from outrageously bushy eyebrows, the worst fashion sense in the Five Great Nations, and a masochistic addiction to training, was a laser focus on taijutsu over all other shinobi disciplines. And whereas Gai's full abilities were as much of a mystery as those of any jōnin, it was a known fact that Rock Lee was so extremely untalented with ninjutsu that even the Academy Three were forever out of his reach. While it was clear that certain strings had been pulled in order to allow him to make it as far as genin level, it was also acknowledged that he trained harder than any three other ninja put together, and that if he survived long enough to gain the necessary experience, he could ultimately become the greatest taijutsu instructor of his generation.

More relevantly to Naruto’s interests, this crippled prodigy seemed to be busy staring in Team Seven's general direction. The good news was that he didn’t seem to be glaring at them on Neji’s behalf. The bad news was that Naruto recognised that lovestruck expression. He’d seen it in the mirror far too many times during his misspent youth, and it had even been directed at the same person. Apparently, Sakura had a new admirer—because the one thing their team needed right now was more complications to their collective love life.

Well, that at least wasn't his problem. Instead of worrying about potential love triangles, Naruto slowly cast his gaze around the room. Chōji's team was hanging out on the left side of the assembly hall. A lanky, bespectacled Hidden Grass ninja was urgently dragging his two teammates away from Chōji and Ino respectively, while for some reason bowing repeatedly to Shikamaru. Probably not important.

In one corner, a red-haired boy with a gourd was surveying the room with an expression of peaceful curiosity, as if browsing a bookshelf containing many volumes of mild interest. His teammates, on the other hand, were positioned around him in an unmistakeable blocking formation, and their stances left it unclear whether they were protecting the boy from the room or the room from the boy. Naruto made a note to avoid them like the plague.

Hinata stood in another corner, screened by Kiba and Shino while she presumably scanned the room with her Byakugan. Akamaru was engaged in some kind of communication with Kiba, but which way the flow of information was going was anyone’s guess.

A trio of ninja from the recently-established Hidden Sound were working different sections of the room, having brief conversations with every team they encountered.

And, most interestingly, a Leaf genin in his twenties, one of the oldest people present, had gathered a small crowd and was talking to them in a voice too soft to be heard from a distance. This warranted investigation.

“What's going on?”

“Allow me to explain. My name is Yakushi Kabuto,” the genin told him with a smile. His voice was simultaneously enthusiastic and serene, like that of a door-to-door salesman who’d achieved enlightenment. “You see, I seem to have the worst luck with the Chūnin Exam for some reason—I’m already on my sixth attempt. Since I’ve been at it for so long, I've been trying to make the most of it by collecting and recording information that suits my particular interests.” He pointed to a sizeable stack of cards in front of him, and drew one from somewhere near the middle. “I'd be happy to share any of it with you, my friend, and all I ask in return is that you make your own contribution to my little well of knowledge.”

He raised the card in front of Naruto's face, such that nobody else could read it. It contained a standard summary read-out as used in ninja profiles, with “Uzumaki Naruto” written at the top.

Naruto hurriedly scanned the contents. Dates of birth, Academy entry and graduation. Genin status and number of missions completed by rank. Disconcerting, but nothing a fellow Leaf ninja couldn’t pull from the records.

The next section was a typical pentagonal diagram that summarised his basic skills relative to others of his rank. Naruto couldn’t remember getting one of those made since he graduated. He wondered who’d made it, and when. How accurate was it, anyway?

Genjutsu, low D-rank. Fair. Naruto didn't know _any_ actual genjutsu, and wasn’t desperate to learn. Genjutsu was a discipline you had to dedicate yourself to if you wanted to get serious results, same as medical ninjutsu, and Naruto would much rather develop his own unique Uzumaki Style than be the biggest fish in a small pond of specialists.

Taijutsu, low B-rank, hovering uncomfortably near C. Sadly fair. The Uzumaki Style was all about delivering overwhelming force at a single unexpected point, rather than the ability to go toe-to-toe. Not that being able to beat up Sasuke wasn’t a valuable skill in its own right, but craftiness and cunning were the very definition of being a ninja. Trying to win all your battles by punching people in the face until they fell over was _embarrassing_ , like breaking through a wall because you didn’t notice the door.

Ninjutsu, solid B-rank. Surprising. The Multiple Shadow Clone Technique was powerful, but as far as public record was concerned, it was his only non-Academy technique. He’d expected clan kids like Chōji to easily overshadow him with their variety of unique abilities.

Chakra control... oh, cold hell.

It was emergency damage control time. If it occurred to anyone to ask for this card, Naruto could be in several different flavours of trouble.

“You know,” he said quietly, leaning over to the information broker's ear, “it would be such a shame if someone were report to ANBU that a Leaf genin was selling information on his fellow ninja to outsiders.”

For the tiniest fraction of a second, Kabuto's hands were a blur. When Naruto looked down, all he saw was an ordinary, if extensive, set of Hidden Cloud playing cards, laid out in a particularly sophisticated solitaire game of “Hunt the Dragon”.

Kabuto gave Naruto a cheerful smile. “I was merely offering to share a few tips with fellow players, and maybe pick up some new ones. It does get dull waiting between exam stages so many times, so I've had an awfully long time to refine my game. But I see you’re not interested in playing?”

Naruto gave him a “You’ve got to be kidding me” look.

“I do apologise for any misunderstanding,” Kabuto said. “With such a varied personal deck, sometimes I end up showing the wrong things to the wrong people. But since it does seem I've inconvenienced you, I'll try to keep it better organised in the future. After all… friends are always ready to do favours for each other.”

Kabuto adjusted his glasses, during which brief period the cards reorganised themselves into a neat stack once again. Before turning to his next client, he gave Naruto a mischievous wink.

Naruto had a very bad feeling about this.

He was also left with the problem that a number of people had been in position to see he had something to hide. It was going to take something drastic to distract them before that first impression became fixed.

After a second’s thought, Naruto climbed onto a desk in the middle of the room and struck a dramatic pose, doing his best impression of the protagonist of _Saga Gaiden_ (the prequel in which Saga was still a kid, and kept making a fool of himself in his efforts to look cool in front of the girl he liked).

“My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I'm not going to lose to any of you bastards!”

The room fell silent for a second, and then Naruto was greeted with a combination of disbelieving laughter (from the more emotionally secure genin) and killing intent (from most of the rest).

Mission accomplished. Everyone would remember him, and they would remember him as the biggest idiot at the Chūnin Exam. This also meant that the more cunning enemies would go after Team Seven last, since it made more sense to deal with greater threats first and wipe out the small fry later, rather than wasting resources on them that could make the difference between victory and defeat against their real challengers. If nothing else, it might cancel out the increased threat status Team Seven got from the presence of an Uchiha in their ranks. All Naruto had to do was keep his head down during the first event, until everyone was done dismissing his team from consideration, and then nobody would see it coming when they blasted through the rest of the exam.

-o-

Unfortunately, Naruto's strategy had one unexpected victim: Morino Ibiki, who had chosen that exact moment to walk into the room, and was now having to work very hard to maintain the air of deadly seriousness with which he'd intended to conduct the next part of the exam.

“Attention!” he barked after a second during which he arranged his face into a disapproving scowl, tensing facial muscles lest their twitching reveal his true reaction. “My name is Morino Ibiki, and I am the instructor in charge of this examination. I will now explain—”

But Team Seven seemed set on making his life difficult. Uchiha Sasuke raised a hand.

“A word, sir?”

Ibiki knew what was coming. He’d intended to delay this particular conversation until a more convenient moment, but the boy looked like he was on the verge of doing something unwise. Better to be flexible here than to risk having to disqualify one of Leaf’s most promising genin before the first stage even began.

He beckoned the Uchiha into a side room.

-o-

“How dare you?” Sasuke shouted. “How _dare_ you? You knew full well what it would mean for me to think Itachi was nearby, and that he was killing again!”

“Yes, I did,” Morino acknowledged, calm and implacable as a stone wall. “I could have chosen any number of S-rank criminals for the scenario, and I chose Uchiha Itachi because we had to know if you were a liability.”

Sasuke’s rage was disrupted by confusion. “A liability?”

Morino looked stern, even more so than usual. “Do you believe that you are the first shinobi to be driven by an obsessive need for revenge? There have been countless cases of shinobi choosing to derail or abandon their missions in the name of hunting down their foes, and they invariably end in disaster. You nearly failed the test, and you were saved only by the moderating influence of your team, and your ability to eventually see reason when you are being beaten over the head with it.”

Sasuke didn’t know what to say. His actions had seemed so _right_ at the time, the fulfilment of a destiny, of the only way things could be. It had been jarring to be pulled out of that experience of certainty, and discover that apparently he was in the middle of being a tunnel-visioned loser even worse than Naruto. Doubly jarring to have his errors pointed out to him by _Sakura_ , whom he’d previously seen as something not unlike a pet dog—she was definitely on his side, and he wouldn’t want her to come to harm, but she was also frequently irritating and had a tendency to get underfoot.

Quite _what_ he’d nearly done was still sinking in. He had nearly _abandoned_ _his team_. The fact that they could have been in serious danger without him almost seemed secondary to the fact that he had done the one thing he considered a crime above all others. In truth, his life hadn’t left him particularly well-equipped to understand what others meant when they talked about loyalty and interpersonal bonds—all he’d ever done was watch them break, one after another—and he often found it hard to see why they mattered so much when weighed against really obvious virtues like truth and honour and the drive to grow stronger. But even so, there were some things you just _did not do_ , not if you wanted to keep thinking of yourself as a human being.

And now his actions had left him with a devastating dilemma. When it came to Itachi, there was only one choice he could make in order to stay true to himself, but what if that choice ultimately created a self not worth staying true to?

“Understand this,” Morino said. “You are a particularly gifted genin. You possess one of the greatest Bloodline Limits in existence, if you can only master its full power. You are the last hope for a clan whose extinction would change the world more than you can know. You are _needed_. And you are someone who has the potential to become the next Uchiha Itachi.”

Sasuke started to object without thinking, but Morino spoke over him.

“There is a reason that the Will of Fire is the will to protect. Some of history’s greatest villains were champions of good until they became driven by the need to destroy evil.

“Itachi was a wise, selfless and honourable man who alone did more good during his years as a loyal Leaf shinobi than entire clans have accomplished over generations. I do not for a second believe the rumours that his betrayal was motivated by personal gain, or by hatred, or that he succumbed to deception or blackmail. The only possibility that leaves is that he somehow believed that the existence of his clan was evil, and that to eradicate it was an act of good. Do you believe it was an act of good, Sasuke?”

Sasuke shook his head. The question should not have even needed asking, and yet some tiny part of him wanted, in defiance of all morality, to believe that Itachi was in the right.

“No sane man can. The only way to call the murder of innocents an act of good is to shut yourself off from reason through blind zeal—the kind of blind zeal that gets a genin killed rushing off to fight one of the world’s deadliest missing-nin.”

Morino looked at Sasuke for a few moments. That was when it clicked. Sasuke realised what the jōnin was trying to hide.

The clues were all there, for someone with the flawless perception of the Uchiha. The way that Morino, despite his upright military bearing and arms habitually folded behind his back, stood just a little closer to Sasuke than a superior officer would, yet without infringing on his personal space. The tone of his voice, underlaid with a faint current not of compassion—Sasuke knew well how easily that could turn to pity—but of understanding. And hidden in the depths of Morino’s eyes, so subtle that Sasuke wouldn’t have known to look for it if he hadn’t noticed how Morino’s eyebrows weren’t quite set firmly enough for the rebuke he was delivering… deep recognition. Maybe even kinship.

It came to Sasuke how alike he and the head of Torture & Interrogation really were—both burdened by a duty others couldn’t understand, a task that only they could accomplish. Both forced to set aside trivial bonds and the desire for others’ approval in order to do what must be done. Morino must have recognised that long before Sasuke did. With the superior wisdom of his experience, he must have seen Sasuke on the verge of unwittingly abandoning his path, and reached out to set him straight. And at the same time, with iron discipline he had resisted the temptation to form a personal bond that would only distract them both from doing what had to be done.

Was Morino aware that Sasuke had noticed? It was hard to tell, but he had a feeling that the jōnin’s expression had turned a little bit more stony, the eternal tension in his stance a little more pronounced. He was strengthening the emotional wall in order to make things easier for Sasuke.

Morino went on as if the relationship between him and Sasuke had not changed at all, which, in a way, was the whole point.

“You made one choice today—with help—that does not lead to the path of becoming a new Itachi. There will be others. Some will be obvious, others unimaginably subtle. Some will call for sacrifices you do not want to make. Not a single one of them will be easy.

“I am not speaking only of choosing between good and evil, a concept even a child can understand. I am speaking of choosing between reason and emotion, of knowing when to follow your feelings and when to lock them away so that you may do what is right. That is the choice which you faced today, and the choice which will decide whether you follow in your brother’s footsteps.”

Nothing was said for some time as Morino allowed his words to sink in. Sasuke did his level best to memorise every one, aware that these must be the challenges that Morino himself had overcome in order to get where he was now.

Finally, there came a dismissal.

“Go. There are many more trials to come, and countless bookmakers are waiting to see whether the last Uchiha will fulfil his potential.”

Sasuke frowned as he was waved out. Had that been a joke from a man who never joked? Or a hint of affection? A reminder that Sasuke’s choices had consequences beyond his own future? Or simply an acknowledgement that, in the end, Morino-sensei had faith in his abilities? Sasuke couldn’t tell. He really did have a lot of work to do before he was ready to play at Morino-sensei’s level.

-o-

“It has been drawn to my attention,” Ibiki began, “that some of you have objections to the way the preliminary phase of the Chūnin Exam was conducted. Well, then, I shall explain, and then you will enter Stage 1 without unnecessary distractions.

“The scenario you experienced was the product of many months’ joint work between Hidden Leaf and Hidden Sand’s best genjutsu specialists. Its objective was twofold. First, it tested to what extent all of you were capable of following instructions under stress. The Chūnin Exam creates a high-pressure environment, and deviation from instructions can result in permanent injury or death.

“Second, for our foreign guests, it was a test to establish that none of you would seek to take advantage of a crisis in order to act against the interests of Hidden Leaf in any way.”

At this, there was much angry murmuring, and more than a few people quietly wishing for _his_ permanent injury or death.

Ibiki noted the focal points in the crowd, but was otherwise unmoved. In his profession, death threats were gifts—they were clues to some of the central levers of a resource’s psyche, hinting at the nature of their own fears, their defensive mechanisms and their habitual pathways of thought. Resources casting death threats at an interrogator fancied themselves archers firing arrows from the castle walls, when in reality they were footmen throwing open the gates before a besieging army.

“Before any of you take offence, be aware that certain genin teams did in fact fail this part of the test, and have been deported from Leaf without right of return. Additional punishments will be imposed by their home villages. Every participating village has agreed that its shinobi will act as our allies within the context of the Chūnin Exam, and there is no greater crime in the shinobi world than betraying an ally.

“Now,” he concluded, “follow me through this door into the next chamber, and then the Chūnin Exam can begin.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “AU” as used in this chapter stands for “arbitrary unit”.

 

Having taken his assigned seat, Naruto studied the deadly weapons laid out before him—weapons which he had seen destroy one Academy student after another, and which the Chūnin Exam creators now expected him to wield. Yes, to a certain kind of mind there was nothing more terrifying than the question sheet, the huge stack of answer paper and the sharpened HB pencil.

In an act of unexpected charity, the question sheets had been placed on the desks face-up. Apparently the organisers were either optimistic or pessimistic enough to believe that a couple of minutes’ extra thinking wouldn’t make a difference to the results.

The first question (for some reason labelled no. 143) was on the differences between the form and function of various kinds of clone, and was not something a typical genin would know in that level of detail. It made Naruto more than a little suspicious. If this was the level of knowledge required, then why had all of his year’s genin been recommended for an exam this hard after mere months in the field?

Fortunately, Naruto was not a typical genin. Sure, everyone knew that ordinary clones were just frail chakra shells wrapped around thin air, which made them terrible at storing chakra or performing more than the simplest techniques, and vulnerable to anything worse than a light gust of wind.

But not everyone had studied water clones in detail, and knew that they were volumes of fluid held together by the attracting power of Water-polarised chakra, with distributed processing across the entire body allowing them to more closely imitate the original’s mental and chakra systems, and store sufficient chakra reserves for at least a few low-level techniques. The mass and easy flow of the water made them agile and potentially hard-hitting, but at the same time it leaked out rapidly once their outer shells were pierced, causing them to lose shape and disintegrate when damaged. It was the reason Zabuza’s clones had been so effective, but also the reason why each had gone down from a single clean hit.

On the other hand, even to Naruto, shadow clones were a mystery. The forbidden technique scroll had detailed the hand seals, mental techniques and subtleties of chakra manipulation needed to craft clones out of Yin, or Shadow, chakra. This was not the same as explaining what Shadow chakra actually was, or how it related to the conventional circle of elements. Presumably the assumption was that if you’d been allowed to study the Hokage’s scroll of forbidden techniques, it would be because you were an elite jōnin who already knew the theory. All Naruto had been able to figure out, without access to restricted materials way above genin clearance, was that it did not shape carefully-programmed and fundamentally inhuman golems out of suitable materials at hand. Rather, it had the extraordinary ability to create fragile but exact copies of the user’s physical and chakra structure out of Shadow (whatever that meant), resulting in self-aware, literal clones.

Of course, this was not enough to explain the mechanism of sharing and retrieving ordinary chakra, or the incredible ability to receive destroyed clones’ memories. Unfortunately, the other ninja who knew the technique, Kakashi-sensei and the Hokage, were too sensible to give a mere genin, much less a _creative_ genin, that kind of classified information. Nor were the only other Shadow users he knew about, the Nara Clan, likely to share their secrets.

Naruto was still browsing the other questions, which also demanded either specialised knowledge or advanced mathematical or reasoning skills, when Morino Ibiki’s voice filled the classroom.

“I will now tell you the rules for Stage 1 of the Chūnin Exam. Listen carefully, as I will say them only once.

“In front of you are question sheets, each containing a unique set of ten questions randomly selected from this year’s database, and answer sheets with your name and seat number printed on them. Write the question numbers, together with your answers, on the answer sheets. You need not show your working.

“For every correct question-answer pair handed in at the end of the test, you will receive one point. The highest scoring half of you, which is to say ninety shinobi, will then be permitted to proceed to Stage 2. Note that if even a single member of a team does not make it into the top half, their entire team will fail, and the rankings will be adjusted accordingly, eliminating the team with the lowest-scoring member each time until there are thirty successful teams. In the event of a tie, the member with the lower seat number will be eliminated. Seat numbers have been assigned at random and are not distributed sequentially.

“Interfering with or attempting to copy another candidate’s work is considered cheating, and anyone caught doing this will be docked ten points. The invigilators you can see around the edges of the room are not part of the test, and any attempt to interfere with _their_ work will lead to immediate disqualification.

“That is all. You have an hour. You may now begin.”

 

Now this was _interesting_. Since completing only your own question sheet could score you a maximum of ten points, it followed that anybody wishing to beat the average would have to copy other people’s answers. Or they could destroy said answers so they could not be handed in. After all, what mattered was not one’s absolute score, but by how much it was above or below other people’s.

This fit perfectly, Naruto realised, with the fact that being caught cheating incurred only a loss of points rather than disqualification. It was a game of risk versus reward, doubly so if every teammate had to pass, and of course some of them would be stronger academically and some of them would be better cheaters.

But under those conditions alone, the exam was unwinnable. A ninja smart enough to answer these questions would also be smart enough to know that the optimal strategy for them personally would be not to write down their answers until the last second, preventing anyone from copying or destroying them. But what would happen if every smart ninja did that?

Probability (or more likely the teams’ respective Kage, given the need for complementary skill sets) dictated that virtually every team would have one average-intellect genin. In that optimistic case, you'd end up with ninety smart ninja passing, thirty slightly less smart ninja failing, and sixty average ninja failing and dragging their passing teammates down with them. In other words, the strategy that would have been optimal for an individual exam would instead mean every single ninja failing.

The natural response would be for the smart ninja to figure out the answers and then somehow pass them on to their teammates without writing them down. But this would require the teammates (again, genin not blessed with particular intelligence) to hold very complex answers in their heads until the end of the exam, and then write them down in a hurry without making any mistakes. Nobody in the bottom third was going to do that well enough to displace someone in the smart top half and make sure their team passed.

That meant you'd have to physically pass the answers to your teammates, in a potentially interceptable way, who would then have to write them down. Communication, which raised the score that most needed raising, but could be intercepted. Interception, which simultaneously raised your score and lowered somebody else's, but was hardest to pull off. Copying, which raised your score but required time and concentration. And destruction, which lowered somebody else's score but gained you nothing directly. Four separate skill sets. Four separate strategies. Four separate ways to get caught by the invigilators.

Why couldn't all of Naruto's exams have been like this?

For Team Seven, the key would be Sakura. All three had excellent academic skills, but whereas Naruto’s shadow clones gave him amazing flexibility, and Sasuke’s Sharingan was the perfect tool for the job, Naruto couldn’t see how Sakura was going to cheat effectively. His strategy would therefore have to include some way of safely getting her additional answers.

Not writing anything until the end. Ensuring the others had enough answers to hand in. Not getting caught by the invigilators. What was the most effective way to work within these requirements given Naruto’s specific skillset?

Naruto spent a few minutes thinking, during which time, imperceptible to the casual observer, all the cold hells broke loose. Then a lightbulb lit up inside his head, and he had to stop himself from laughing out loud. It was so simple. Stage One wasn’t a challenge anymore—it was a game, and a game with invulnerability and infinite ammo codes at that. Yes, Naruto liked that metaphor. Now that he no longer had to worry about getting high scores, it was time to hunt down the secrets.

-o-

Hinata deactivated her Byakugan, and carefully dipped her brush into the inkwell of foul-smelling liquid that she’d brought with her. It was tricky to use for fine writing, but being a Hyūga was all about precise coordination. It was also about being prepared, in accordance with the unspoken First Law of Hyūga Hiashi: “ _Everything_ is a test”.

A minute later, a swarm of tiny insects crawled onto her desk, settled exactly on the words she’d written, paused for a second, and then disappeared again.

Elsewhere, Kiba reached down under his desk and retrieved a slightly chewed answer sheet from Akamaru’s mouth. “Nice work,” he whispered. “Now go for that guy there, the one that smells of three-day-old cut grass and fear.”

-o-

A Hidden Waterfall genin stabbed desperately at his answer sheets again and again, unable to make even the tiniest mark, and equally unable to see the very fine layer of sand that was covering them. A few seats down, someone else’s sheet slithered away of its own accord, almost as if pulled by a puppeteer’s strings, while a gust of wind blew a third's away.

-o-

Shikamaru shook his head briefly to get rid of the disorientation, and quickly looked over the coded message on the sheet in front of him.

_Done. Answers from 57 and 123 at the bottom of your stack, and copied to Chōji. He says surveillance is complete on 21 and 44, but he’s coming under attack from 118._

_I’m down to around 14 AU. Five more Mind Transfers tops. Six might knock me out, and I’ve reached the safe toxicity limit on Chōji’s soldier pills._

_Also feeling pretty wiped. I hope there isn’t a combat test right after this._

He wrote his reply.

_Good job._

_2 AU: Take 41. Memorise then destroy his answer sheets—he should have five._

_2 AU: Use 41 to destroy 42’s answer stack. 41 has a hip flask, likely containing acid, which may help. Stealth optional, but dispel before 42 retaliates._

_2 AU: Take Chōji. Give him 41’s answers, and tell him to follow the instructions from Sheet 3 Part B until further notice._

_I’ll take over comms with Shadow Imitation, but I don’t have a good angle on Chōji, so I may need to route through you. Save your last 6 AU for that and emergencies._

_You can run light interference for the rest of the exam. If in doubt, follow Sheet 2 part C._

Yes, there was an even more obvious and reliable strategy available, and he might still have to make use of it in an emergency. But building the plan around Chōji and Ino’s abilities would give them confidence for the next stage of the exam. And besides, he didn’t want to shut his friends out of one of the most important events of their career.

-o-

Neji, watching closely to catch that one gap in the invigilators’ line of sight, threw a folded paper dart to Rock Lee, who caught it with ease. The latter read it, then began to drum an exact little pattern on his desk with his flawless sense of rhythm. Some carefully-strung ninja wire hummed softly under Tenten’s desk at the far end of the row.

Unbeknownst to any of them, the Sound ninja took careful note.

-o-

Naruto finished the last of his mental calculations, and quickly spawned and destroyed a pre-transformed shadow clone in his lap.

The door to the exam room flew open, and a certain familiar blonde jōnin rushed in.

“Attention, everyone. The Chūnin Exam is cancelled! You must—”

She didn’t finish. Morino Ibiki glanced at her forehead protector, sprang out of his chair, and dealt her a knife-hand strike to the temple that would’ve knocked out any normal person. Since the jōnin was not a normal person, she instead vanished in the Shadow Clone Technique’s characteristic puff of smoke. Morino-sensei’s eyes narrowed in annoyance.

_Of course_ Naruto had left a few disguised shadow clones outside in case he needed them. After what he’d had to do to get out of Haku’s technique, he was never making that mistake again as long as he lived.

Naruto basked in a warm glow of self-congratulation. He hadn’t been completely sure it would work, but that distraction had drawn everyone’s attention, if only for the couple of seconds he needed.

Over the course of their career, every ninja gradually developed their own unique toolkit. Sasuke, for example, already had a thing for ninja wire, and Kakashi-sensei always carried those dog-summoning scrolls. As for Naruto, one of the first things he’d learned as a prankster was that quick-setting glue had a million terrible uses, and he never went anywhere without it.

The springs had been more difficult. Ordinary ones were a pain to carry, and his early experiments had shown that trying to compress a shadow clone spring far enough typically crossed its damage threshold. After all, the resilience of materials created by disguise techniques typically did not reach beyond the object’s surface.

Fortunately, he’d eventually had a brainwave, which was simply to transform the shadow clones into an already-coiled state. And now there was a bunch of clone ping-pong balls glued to various points on the classroom ceiling, watching the other genin’s abilities and tactics. Long hours spent as a bush while looking for an opening to get Sasuke had taught Naruto that one’s disguise did not need conventional eyes or breathing apparatus to connect to those of the user, and after that it was just a matter of experimentation and skill to learn how to use different sizes. As for positioning, well, Kakashi-sensei’s teachings on peeping techniques had not gone to waste.

-o-

Taking advantage of her neighbour’s temporary distraction, the Mist ninja made a few quick seals.

“Water Element: Exploding Soap Bubble Technique!”

A series of tiny, barely visible water bubbles poured out of her mouth and, guided by her will, floated unerringly towards her target’s stack of answer paper.

Its owner whipped around.

“Fire Element: Desert Mirage Technique!”

A haze of hot air enveloped his part of the desk, making it impossible to accurately tell the location of his papers, while simultaneously creating an updraft that sent the water bubbles up towards the ceiling, perilously close to one of Naruto’s clones.

The Mist ninja urgently began a new technique to pre-empt his retaliation.

“Water Element: Concealing Mist Technique!”

A very localised and very thick fog completely enveloped her possessions, making them impossible to target.

But her opponent was undeterred.

“Fire Element: Firelighter Technique!”

He leaned in to the very edge of her fog, a blade of flame streaming from his mouth. Less than a metre long and barely a centimetre wide, it was nevertheless enough to set everything in front of her on fire, while taking advantage of her own technique to conceal the fact from the invigilators.

-o-

Sasuke’s Sharingan was fixed on the back of a genin a few rows ahead of him, and his body moved as if on its own, imitating the exact movements of his target as the latter wrote down a new answer set.

-o-

Shikamaru casually flexed his fingers in the air in front of him, as if performing hand exercises to prevent writing cramp. A genin two rows ahead stared in horror at his own disobedient hands as they shredded answer sheet after answer sheet. Then the girl on his left began to do the same...

-o-

“Your time is up. Put down your pencils and come forward to hand in your answers when you are called.”

Naruto had only a single sheet in front of him, hastily filled in at the very last second. It would be enough.

He placed his hands under his desk and muttered, “Multiple Shadow Clone Technique”.

-o-

Ibiki gave a heavy sigh. In front of him in the examiner’s office lay countless separated stacks of paper. Three from one examinee. Five from another. A rare few even had collections in the double figures. But one of these things was not like the others.

Two hundred copies of the exact same sheet of correct answers, except that while the majority said “Uzumaki Naruto”, there were also a few with “Uchiha Sasuke” printed on them, and quite a number with “Haruno Sakura”. And while Ibiki knew for a fact that he could reduce those sheets to absolute non-existence simply by poking them hard enough, the fact of the matter was that the insufferable child had indeed handed in two hundred sets of correct question-answer pairs.

-o-

The results were in. Naruto, of course, was way at the top of the list where he belonged, with a score five times that of the next most successful candidate (namely Sakura, because apparently Naruto had overdone it with her safety margin). Hinata’s team was pretty high up as well, while Chōji’s was almost exactly in the middle of the top half, neither exceptionally high nor exceptionally low. And Naruto noted with some glee that while Neji’s team had managed to secure a pass, their score was unremarkable at best.

 “You little bastard!”

Once again, Naruto’s success was not being met with the appreciation it deserved.

“What’s wrong, Sakura?”

“What’s wrong?” Sakura hissed. “You just completed the written test for me, without even asking for my permission!”

Naruto was genuinely confused. “But I made sure our entire team got through, without risking anyone failing. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Sakura threw her hands up in impotent rage. “You just don’t do that! How do you think I feel, having everything I did completely trivialised because _you_ wanted to show off?”

“But if I hadn’t done it, you might have failed,” Naruto said in his most reasonable voice.

Oddly, this only seemed to incense Sakura further. “Could you not have asked first? ‘Say, Sakura, how are you doing with the test? Would you like me to help you?’ And don’t tell me that you couldn’t have figured out a way to communicate with all those ridiculous techniques of yours!”

Seeing that people were beginning to stare, Sakura finally took a few deep breaths to calm down.

“You didn’t even consider that maybe, just maybe, I might have been doing fine on my own. Or that maybe there was some way you could’ve backed me up without cutting me completely out of my own exam. Tell me, did you think of that at all? Even for a second?”

Naruto shook his head sheepishly. He was tempted to point out that Sasuke hadn’t tried to help her either, but a little voice in the back of his head firmly told him not to go there.

“Screw you, Naruto.” Sakura rolled her eyes in disgust and walked away.

Sasuke didn’t say anything, but the look of pure, unadulterated hostility he gave Naruto before he followed Sakura suggested that if he’d had a bone to pick with Naruto before, it had now grown to the size of a full dinosaur skeleton.

It was at this moment that Naruto’s brain took the opportunity to remind him that until an hour ago, his plan had been to play the fool one last time in order to draw attention away from his team.

Somehow, Naruto’s great victory now felt a little hollow.


	20. Chapter 20

After a brief break, the remaining genin reassembled in the classroom, and Team Seven was not in a good place. Sasuke and Sakura still weren’t comfortable talking to each other, and neither deigned to acknowledge Naruto’s existence. It didn’t help that the mood in the room was generally uneasy, as Morino-sensei was sitting silent in his chair, waiting for something, radiating a tension that suggested he was preparing for danger. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that anything that could be considered a threat by Morino Ibiki was something no genin would ever want to face.

Bang! The door to the classroom flew open, making several people jump.

A kunoichi strode in as if she owned the place. Mouths dropped open as the genin took in her appearance, overlooking her sticky-up violet hair and beige longcoat and moving straight to the mesh bodysuit beneath it, which left very little to the imagination.

“What is this, Ibiki?” the woman demanded in a petulant voice. “I ask you for the elite of the elite, and you give me this swarm of maggots?”

Morino-sensei made to reply, but she beat him to it.

“Well, listen up, maggots. If any of you want to stop being the deepest shame of your village and turn into beautiful chūnin butterflies, then you’re going to have to come out of your shells and show me everything you’ve got in Stage 2. I’m Mitarashi Anko, Leaf jōnin extraordinaire, and I am going to put you through hell.”

Morino-sensei stood up and opened his mouth again.

“So here’s the deal, my dears,” Anko cut him off before he could say a word. “You’re going out into a scenic little spot we like to call the Forest of Death. There, you’ll be fighting each other in your teams to see who can get the most conversion tags, while surviving the elements, the deadly wildlife, the killer plants, and just a bunch of cool stuff that I’ll leave for you to discover. I’ll be watching you from the Itama Tower, slap bang in the middle of the forest, and at the end of the third day, you’ll be bringing me all the tags you’ve hunted down like a cat brings its owner dead mice.” Here she briefly ran her tongue over her lips, causing involuntary shudders in a number of genin.

“The teams with the most tags get to go through to the Finals. Will it be ten teams? Twenty? Just three? Who knows? All right, I know, but what would life be without surprises? Isn’t that right, Ibiki?”

Morino-sensei tried to answer, but Anko carried on without a pause.

“Now, I’m sure you’re all wondering what a conversion tag is, ‘cause we’re not talking anything boring like explosive tags or sealing tags. No, my dears, we’re talking the bloodstained, delicious cutting edge of technology, and so I’m going to hand over to the man who can tell you all about it. Pleeeease welcome… Professor Kurogane Jirō!”

A disturbingly familiar-looking man strolled into the room. He looked much like the doctor who enjoyed messing with Naruto’s head, except that he was shorter, his beard was rounded and bushy rather than pointy, and instead of the cool, piercing gaze of Dr Kurogane he had a jovial expression that somehow wasn’t any more reassuring.

“Hello there. As the delightful Miss Mitarashi has stated, my name is Kurogane Jirō, and I am the head of ANBU Research & Development.” He bowed.

“I expect you’re all wondering what I’m doing here. To be honest, I am as well.”

The two jōnin examiners both gave him the same long-suffering look.

“Oh yes, the prototype. Sorry, I’d forget my own head if it wasn’t securely attached with magnetic clamps.”

Prof. Kurogane tapped his fingers together in anticipation. “So here’s the basic concept. Dotted randomly around the Forest of Death are a number of what we call chakra obelisks. Small man-sized pillars, you see, almost the colour of the lovely Miss Mitarashi’s coat there.”

The various genin immediately turned to look at Anko, who gave a happy little twirl as if she were a girl trying on her first ever ball gown.

Prof. Kurogane gave an appreciative smile and continued. “You put your hands on one, it drains your chakra—now don’t give me that look, chakra drain isn’t always fatal—and once you take your hands off, there’s this orifice that spits out a number of tags based on how much chakra you’ve given it. I advise you not mix different people’s chakra or try to accelerate the draining process, or interesting things might happen to you.

“Once the tags come out, it goes to sleep for eight hours while the transmutation evaluators recharge. Oh, and so that for once no one can accuse us of harvesting people’s chakra for undisclosed purposes, while you’re using the obelisk it’ll be converting the chakra it drains into a pretty beacon of light shooting way into the sky.”

He glanced sideways at Anko. “Did I leave anything out?”

“Ooh, ooh, tell them about the indescribable torment thing!”

“Oh, yes. Now there’s one more thing I’ve been asked to warn you about. I know it can be tempting, out in the field, to blow things up just so your enemies can’t have them, but if you damage one of my lovely little prototypes…”

There was a faraway look in his eyes for a moment, as if he was trying to work something out. Then he relaxed.

“Now that I think of it, it will still be useful experimental data for me. _You_ , on the other hand, might not enjoy the process so much. If you don’t mind, I’d rather not go into detail. Some of us have just had lunch.”

Morino-sensei stepped forward quickly, starting his speech exactly as Prof. Kurogane finished.

“There is only one absolute rule for this exam. Inflict as much violence on each other as you wish, but any killing of fellow shinobi will be punished with instant disqualification and court martial. This is a competitive examination, not a bloodbath.”

Anko’s eyes lit up at that last word. “Actually, I once—”

“Not in front of the children, Mitarashi.”

“Aww, but…”

“Very well,” Ibiki said in the unreadable voice of a master diplomat agreeing to a concession. “If you insist on sharing the details of your private life with these genin, I shall assist you. Let us begin with the Noodle Incident of—”

“I’ll be good!”

Ibiki raised an eyebrow very slightly. Then he turned back to the genin, his face blank, and it was as if the whole exchange had never happened.

“Reconvene at the entrance to the Seventh Training Grounds at 7:00 tonight,” he instructed. “Foreign teams, follow the signposts from the Hokage’s office. Leaf teams, the signposts are not part of the exam, and modifying them is a punishable act of vandalism. Bring any provisions and equipment you expect to need over the next three days, because attempting to leave the forest during the examination will result in immediate disqualification. Dismissed!”

-o-

Team Seven was enjoying a quiet evening in the Forest of Death, having picked a broad clearing with a clear line of sight across it for their campsite, and chased away a number of venomous snakes and eradicated what appeared to be a nest of giant jumping spiders. Well, perhaps “enjoying” wasn’t the right word, given that all of the members were still either too embarrassed or too hostile to speak to each other.

It was when they finally put the fire out, and were preparing to decide who took second watch (naturally, Naruto would take the first, since his clones were already in place and would vanish once he went to sleep) that a trio of strangers walked into sight unopposed.

With a clear sense of priorities, Sakura immediately turned on Naruto. “And what happened to that shadow clone perimeter watch of yours?” she hissed, quietly enough that the sound wouldn’t carry to the intruders.

“Hey, I would’ve spotted them just like that! But it’s dark, and I swear there was no noise at all!”

The leader of the three, a teenager with long loose sleeves, a mostly bandage-covered face and a silly fur cape, pointed to his forehead protector, twitching his index finger in a sort of “duh” gesture.

“We’re Sound ninja. That means we know how not to make any.”

“All right,” Naruto said. “So what’re you doing here? You know we haven’t had time to get any tags.”

“We’re here to take you out nice and early,” the second ninja said casually. This one was possessed of black hair which stuck up in a conspicuously gelled fashion, and a tan top with the traditional character for “death” written on it in a bunch of places. One use of the character might have been vaguely intimidating, but the excess made it seem almost self-mocking. Then again, Naruto knew from his own example the kind of power that could lurk behind an irreverent façade.

“You’ve got Red-Eye here _and_ you, Mr Shadow Clone,” the ninja went on. “We’d rather deal with you now while we’ve got every advantage.”

“It’s as Zaku says,” confirmed the third one, a girl with no notable features beyond very long black hair. Admittedly, very long hair was an extremely notable feature, since in the ninja world it was code for “I am so amazing at taijutsu that I’m OK with giving you a really easy target to grab”.

“But don’t worry, sweetie,” she went on. “We’re not going to kill you or anything. We’ll just have a little fun—the girl’s mine, by the way—and then tie you up and leave you for the local wildlife. We take rules and regulations very seriously, don’t we, Dosu?”

Dosu, the long-sleeved ninja, rolled his one visible eye. “You know you shouldn’t play with your food, Kin. Let’s just get on with this.”

“Oh, come on. What’s the point of fighting without a little pre-battle banter?”

Naruto decided to take her up on this, for reasons of buying time as much as anything else.

“How’d you know I have shadow clones, anyway?”

Zaku fielded this one. “We’re Sound ninja. It doesn’t matter how quiet anyone was about using their techniques in Stage One, we heard ‘em. Plus, if we weren’t sure before, Miss Bubblegum Head there just confirmed it for us.”

Sakura went pink, unfortunately making the nickname even more appropriate.

“The other thing I was wondering,” Naruto continued, “is why you’d stroll in like that instead of doing a surprise attack when you obviously could.”

“We’ve got instructions,” Dosu said. “Can’t gauge other countries’ strengths if their genin go down in seconds because they’re useless at keeping watch.”

Naruto nodded sagely. “Truly Sound logic.”

Dosu glared.

Naruto grinned. “And those explanations took just long enough. Worldwide Uzumaki Naruto Coalition, attack!”

Thirty clones rushed the three Sound ninja from all sides, kunai out.

But before they could get close, Zaku made a few seals, then spun in a full circle, the other two ducking beneath his outstretched arms. Naruto briefly caught sight of what seemed to be nozzles set into the palms of his hands.

“Improved Wind Element: Nova Thrust Technique!”

For a second, the air was eerily still, and all sound disappeared from the area.

Then something hit Naruto hard in the chest.

The blow wasn’t that strong, not even enough to knock someone over if they were in a defensive stance, but it did have enough force to pop a shadow clone, and it covered the entire clearing in a full 360-degree radius.

“Nice one, Zaku,” Kin said, smirking at Team Seven’s stunned expressions.

“You didn’t think we’d come unprepared, did you, kids?” Zaku grinned.

Dosu glanced at Kin. “You go after the girl with the huge forehead. We’ll take care of things here.”

-o-

Even as they spoke, Sasuke was already charging in. He would have no problem tying up the long-range technique user with taijutsu, and the Sharingan would alert him to any surprises from Dosu. That ought to give Naruto enough time to replenish his shadow clones and restore their numerical advantage.

Then, as he got close, Dosu raised his arms to chest level. With a shrug, he let his sleeves fall back, exposing oddly perforated bracers. He pulled his arms apart, and then violently slammed his fists together.

“Death Knell!”

With the predictive power of the Sharingan, Sasuke could see the move coming just in time to abort his charge and do a chakra-enhanced leap away. But the sound wave was invisible, and he dodged too late to fully evade it.

It was a horrific hammer blow of noise with a frequency that went from brutally low to screeching high. Instead of his normal perfect landing, Sasuke collapsed on the ground, ears bleeding, and vomited. The Sound ninja seemed unaffected.

Zaku laughed. “So here’s a little puzzle for you, Mr Shadow Clone. You can’t get close, and we don’t need to. We’ve got Sound’s best ranged striker, which is to say me. Obviously, it would be boring if you tried to run, ‘cause, as Dosu said, Sound ninja. We can track you just like that, and we’re also a lot faster, more agile and generally more skilled in every way.

“Well,” he added, “that last bit’s not ‘cause we’re Sound ninja. That’s just us being awesome.”

-o-

Meanwhile, Sakura had taken up Kin’s challenge. As Kin made a bee-line for her, Sakura ran around the edge of the clearing, trying to position herself in time. She knew exactly where she needed to be—

Kin, suddenly there, thrust a kunai into her chest.

There was a puff of smoke, and the kunai turned out to be stuck in a log. Sakura really _was_ good at the Substitution Technique.

“Oh, come _on_!” Kin protested in an insulted tone. “ _That’s_ the best you’ve got to—”

Then the explosive tag inside the log went off. Kin screamed as she vaulted sideways to minimise the damage from the blast—and fell headfirst into a concealed pit. There was a dull thud.

“It’s recently been forcefully pointed out to each of us,” Naruto commented, “that we do have a third teammate.”

-o-

Naruto faced Dosu and Zaku, the Sound ninja in a comfortable position in the middle of the clearing: not surrounded but having a perfect field of fire.

“Zaku, gauge his abilities, then take him down,” Dosu ordered.

Well, that at least gave Naruto time to attempt the same. First off, he needed to know the limitations of that technique.

“Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

“Improved Wind Element: Nova Thrust Technique!”

The clones were destroyed as soon as they’d finished forming. Apparently, Zaku’s technique had a _very_ quick use time.

Unfortunately, Naruto would have to rely on the Shadow Clone Technique anyway. Transformation wouldn’t do him a blind bit of good, and Substituting between different points on the circumference of a circle wouldn’t help while his enemies were in the middle.

Sasuke was still down. If Naruto could hold out until he recovered, their options would increase dramatically. What could he do?

More experimentally than anything else, he threw a series of shuriken at Zaku, and then immediately started making seals.

“Improved Wind Element: Nova Thrust Technique!”

“Multiple Shadow Clone Tech—”

The wave, having knocked away all the shuriken, hit Naruto, disrupting his technique. That was an extremely powerful application, assuming you started the Nova Thrust just _before_ your opponent began their ninjutsu.

Could he make pre-transformed shadow clones that would endure the attack? He didn’t think so. Even the Demon Fox hadn’t been able to make clones that _survived_ powerful hits, only ones that could soak up their force before popping.

Then again, he did have one more resource that he hadn’t previously considered.

Naruto turned around, facing _away_ from the killer ninja who specialised in rapid ranged attacks.

“Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

“Improved Wind Element: Nova Thrust!”

Naruto’s clones appeared as a series of very narrow wooden barricades, lined up in a column exactly behind him. The wave hit—but it hit Naruto first, and though he was nearly knocked over, he endured it, and the barricades were untouched.

Naruto was quick to make his next move, leaping over the barricades to the position of safety right behind them. Between them, he figured that the barriers should be able to absorb a single Nova Thrust, giving him the opening he—

“Improved Wind Element: Landshark Technique!”

A tall, extremely narrow vertical blade of wind, curving slightly backwards like a shark’s fin, skimmed rapidly along the ground and went through the clones like an advanced elemental cutting technique through butter, only the distance and the very slight momentum absorption of the barricades giving Naruto time to dodge and not be cut in half.

“C’mon, Mr Shadow Clone,” Zaku laughed. “Did you think I was a one-trick pony?”

He flexed his fingers. “Well, if you’re out of tricks, then I guess it’s time to finish this.

“Improved Wind Element—”

A smoke bomb went off in his face.

-o-

Sasuke, reports of his incapacitation having been greatly exaggerated, jumped up as soon as the bomb left his hand. Most people would think that restricting the vision of ninja trained to hunt by sound was a waste of time, but then most people weren’t Uchiha.

“Fire Element: Great Fireball Technique!”

Sasuke started running around the periphery of the clearing, flashing Naruto hand signals that the enemy ninja couldn’t see, counting on them to be too distracted to target him.

With only sound to guide them, the enemy wouldn’t be able to precisely predict the fireball’s trajectory, forcing them to guess which way to dodge. Sasuke could have aimed the fireball dead centre—but he could also have gone a layer of prediction deeper, aiming it left, right or above since with two people dodging independently, there were good odds one of them would end up jumping in its way. In that case, the correct response for Dosu and Zaku was to stay in place, beating his bluff. But Sasuke, being aware of that possibility, could have gone a layer deeper, double-bluffing and aiming the fireball at the centre again, in which case Dosu and Zaku needed to dodge after all. Unless he was a third-layer player, and triple-bluffing them. And so on. Would these two losers from some barely-founded backwater village be able to read the mind of an Uchiha and figure out what level he was playing at, or would they fail and be burned to ashes?

“Improved Wind Element: Vacuum Dart Technique!”

It would do no good, Sasuke knew. This time, at long last, the circle of elements was working in his favour. Fire beat Wind, every time, and he was looking forward to seeing Zaku try to put out a fire by feeding it more air.

Zaku stuck his arms out to point at the fireball as the technique activated. Something almost invisible flew out of them, creating a slight distortion in the air. As it hit its target, a pulse of pressure pushed all the air around the fireball _away_ in one quick thrust. The vacuum only lasted for an instant before the air rushed back in, but by that time the fireball had been starved of oxygen just long enough to extinguish the chakra core.

As soon as he’d finished performing the technique, Zaku dissipated Sasuke’s smoke with a brief blast of ordinary air from his hand nozzles. Unfortunately, he’d figured out the only possible way to counter an Uchiha’s prowess at mind games, which was not to play at all.

Sasuke was now diametrically opposite Naruto. Both boys charged in at the same time.

There was no more room for the Sound ninja to hold back.

“Improved Wind Element: Landshark Shiver Technique!”

A square formation of blades zoomed at Naruto, aligned so that even if he miraculously dodged one—horizontally or vertically—he’d still be sliced up by the others.

So Naruto didn’t dodge. Instead, right before he was obliterated, he threw a kunai high up into the air.

Then, the instant the blades had passed, the kunai transformed into the real Naruto. He hadn’t wasted his brief time behind the barricades.

“Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!” he shouted, timing it right as Sasuke was about to reach his target on the other side.

With perfect coordination, Dosu ducked to allow Zaku to perform his arm sweep, then came up slamming his fists together.

“Death Knell!”

“Improved Wind Element: Nova Thrust Technique!”

And then the initial wave of silence from the Nova Thrust cancelled out the wave of sound from the Death Knell.

Sasuke promptly shoved both ninja off-balance, and Naruto used the window of opportunity to summon more shadow clones. The rest was history.

-o-

A throwing needle zoomed out of the tree above Sakura’s head and impacted in the ground between the Worldwide Uzumaki Naruto Coalition and Sasuke as they stood over the two unconscious Sound ninja. There was the faint ring of a bell, and then all of them stopped what they were doing and stood still as if in a stupor.

“Dispel!”

Sakura had time for a moment of confusion, and then Kin’s backhand slammed into her face and knocked her to the ground.

“I know I really shouldn’t, but it’s no fun playing with people when they can’t feel it happening.”

Kin viciously kicked Sakura a few times, aiming in particular for her face and stomach, but happy with any other targets of opportunity.

“You were so cute after I nailed you with that first bell, all ‘Yay, that beautiful Sound ninja is still lying in a pit and totally not looking for an opening to disable the rest of my team while I stand around like a moron’.”

She gleefully kicked Sakura some more, the last blow knocking her into the pit.

“You’re… genjutsu-spec… not taijutsu…” Sakura choked out.

Kin looked down at her with a satisfied sneer. “What do you know, that enormous forehead does hide a brain after all. Everyone just assumes you’re taijutsu when you try to close with them, and no one even wonders whether there could be such a thing as melee genjutsu techniques.

“Now, you set my hair on fire, and for that I’m going to give the giant millipedes a head start once we tie you guys up. But you’re in luck. Dosu’s the one with the rope, so you get a few more seconds of lying there and thinking about how useless you are.”

She walked over to her unconscious teammates and pulled something out of her pocket.

“Sound-brand smelling salts, the one-stop solution for all your idiot-awakening needs from the best chemist in the business. Now with bonus splitting headache for dumbasses who forget to combo-test their new techniques.”

She leaned over Zaku and Dosu.

-o-

“What the fuck are you doing, Lee?!”

Before the Sound kunoichi could identify the source of the shout, a high-speed flying kick to her lower back sent her flying several metres.

Neji and Tenten emerged from behind some shrubs.

“We were supposed to allow them to fight it out and then defeat the weakened winner, you—you incoherent clown!” Neji threw his hands up in frustration.

“We still can,” Tenten observed in a flat voice. “Haruno’s the only one left, and she looks like she’s barely conscious.”

Rock Lee held up a hand in protest. “No way. You do not save a fair maiden only to then stab her in the back. I know this was your strategy, Neji, but there are things in life more important than strategy, like the burning spiri—”

“Lee,” Neji snarled, “I swear to the Sage of Six Paths that if you finish that sentence, I will block all of your outer channels and leave you for the vampire bats.”

Then he frowned as his righteous rage was put on pause by a more practical concern. Hadn’t the Sound kunoichi dropped something between her unconscious teammates?

Before Neji could investigate, the two Sound ninja leapt up, immediately assessed the situation, and fled the clearing with a dazed kunoichi leaning on their shoulders. Since they had no tags, and didn’t seem to present much of a threat to a team that was actually competent, Neji decided not to spend the rest of the night pursuing them.

At the same time, the Haruno girl finally reached her teammates, clapped her hands together, then put one on each of their backs.

“Dispel!”

Uzumaki stared around him with a look of predictably moronic bewilderment and groaned. “Not again…”

-o-

Having established that Team Seven was in no immediate danger, Naruto listened as Neji and Rock Lee’s argument grew increasingly heated. Phrases like “shame lasting a thousand generations” and “mental capacity of a stunned jellyfish” were being thrown around with abandon. Finally, their third teammate (maybe Sakura would know her name) gave both of them an uncomfortable look, took a few steps back, and said, “I don’t think I feel like fighting them anymore.” Then she simply walked away, presumably back to her team’s original campsite.

Neji and Rock Lee exchanged glances.

Neji turned to Naruto. “You owe me, you scum,” he spat, and stalked off.

Instead of following, Lee walked up to Sakura and unexpectedly fell to one knee.

“Haruno Sakura,” he said, stretching out one hand, “will you do me the honour of going out with me?”

Sakura shot Naruto a brief look which he clearly read as “See? Here’s how real men do it”.

Then she underwent something that looked to Naruto like a magical girl releasing her combat form, only without the traditional flash of light. In the next instant after looking at Naruto, she was an innocent, gentle young woman, shifting her weight bashfully from foot to foot, her hands clasped behind her, gazing awkwardly down at the ground.

“I’m sorry, Lee. You seem like a really nice guy, and I appreciate you saving us and all, but… my heart belongs to someone else.”

Lee sagged in dejection.

“But,” Sakura completed the traditional formula, “I’m sure we can still be friends!”

Lee stood up, his usual enthusiasm unexpectedly restored.

“You truly have a pure and kind heart to match your beauty. I will be your friend, Haruno Sakura, and I will not rest until I prove myself worthy of your love.”

Naruto strongly suspected that wasn’t how friendship worked, but as a newcomer to the concept he didn’t feel qualified to comment.

Without waiting for a response, Lee beamed at Sakura, spun around, and walked away with a spring in his step.


	21. Chapter 21

Sakamoto Shiina, proud leader of Team Gensō, smiled grimly. The enemy ninja had just collected ten tags from the obelisk. A great haul for her team, and bad luck for him—with that much chakra expended, he’d be easy prey. All things considered, the ambush couldn’t have been executed better if she’d had hours to plan. One of the enemy team was now little better than a civilian (even taijutsu relied on sufficient chakra flow to the muscles), they’d wasted the advantage of higher ground by failing to post a lookout, and Mitsurugi had scanned the area for traps and found nothing so much as a caltrop. Meanwhile, her team had plentiful cover to approach unseen and time to sketch out a plan of attack with hand signals, as well as to identify any potential sources of interference such as natural hazards (i.e. most things in the forest) and impending changes in the weather.

At her signal, Team Gensō prepared to use their speciality Cross Slash formation. A sudden stealth strike at the centre of the enemy group would create an opening through which her teammates would attack in mirrored diagonal movements. She would then identify the greatest remaining threat, and take advantage of their distraction to—

“Temari, Kankurō, looks like we have visitors,” the chakra-drained ninja announced. “Just in time, too.”

Shiina held herself perfectly still. Everything that happened next would be determined by one question: did the enemy know their location?

“Gaara,” the enemy kunoichi said with an odd nervous edge to her voice, “remember what Baki-sensei said. No killing—”

“It’s OK, Temari. No one will know. I don’t sense anyone else in the area, I’ve blocked the cameras, and I’ve set up interference against anyone viewing us directly from the tower.”

“But the Byakugan—”

“The Hyūga have been staying far enough away that I can’t sense them, so I think they must be scared of us. They’re not going to accuse us of anything without evidence. And there won’t _be_ any evidence.”

The extended discussion was throwing Shiina off balance. She’d expected an immediate counterattack, or at least a defensive formation. An internal argument wouldn’t even be good for stalling her team, since it made _more_ sense to attack while the enemy was otherwise occupied. The safest bet was to assume it was some form of psychological warfare, and take a second to think, instead of immediately acting and potentially doing what the enemy wanted.

Was the fact that their targets had been alerted reason enough to abort the attack? No, Shiina decided. They were still three against effectively two, and Team Gensō needed a victory. They’d spent too much time failing to find viable targets, and it was impacting on their tag count and, more importantly, on team morale. Lack of faith in one’s own power dulled blades, weakened muscles, and even, according to some authorities, slowed the flow of chakra. It would be catastrophic in the middle of an already challenging exam.

Before she could act on this decision, Gaara turned straight towards her hiding place. “We know you’re behind that copse of trees. You can come and face us now.”

Shiina gave Hina and Mitsurugi hand signals to circle round while she drew the enemy’s attention. Then she took a deep breath and stepped out into the open, sword drawn.

Temari and Kankurō started to move into their own formation, but Gaara waved them away.

“No, please, let me do it myself. I think that girl there is going to be interesting,” he said, pointing at Shiina.

The two ninja gave Gaara resigned looks and found places to sit further up the hill, as if the coming battle no longer concerned them.

Shiina’s intuition was screaming at her. Something was _wrong_. The enemy should have been barely conscious, not acting with the leisurely confidence of Konnō-sensei during the combat section of the Hidden Waterfall graduation test.

But that made the Cross Slash even more appropriate. She’d take him down fast, before he could pull out whatever trick he had up his sleeve, and then her teammates would be perfectly placed to exploit the other two’s lack of combat stance.

Shiina took a couple of steps forward.

“Phantom Element: Warrior of Light Technique!”

She vanished into thin air.

Gaara’s response was not alarm, or even incomprehension, but what looked oddly like an appreciative smile.

“Ooh, I haven’t seen this Bloodline Limit before. It must be very rare. This is exciting!”

There was no battle tension in his expression, only a focused curiosity that Shiina, moving as stealthily as possible while half of her mind was busy weaving frequencies of light, found more unnerving than any amount of killing intent.

Finally stepping into position, she completed the technique, reappearing in a flash of light as she swung her sword directly at Gaara’s neck.

The blade stopped. Not blocked, not deflected, just stopped. In the instant before she leapt back, she glimpsed a very fine line of sand hovering in the air, a curve matching the shape of her blade, and only slightly wider than its edge.

It was not impossible to defend against her ability—she’d learned that the hard way on the mission where she’d unexpectedly encountered a missing-nin trained to hunt by sound (and had to flee while Konnō-sensei covered the team’s retreat). Could she have once again bitten off more than she could chew? Yes, Shiina admitted. The enemy had been able to detect her and react immediately, with an instant technique that had not been telegraphed in any way whatsoever. She could see why his teammates let him fight her on his own.

“That was really impressive,” Gaara said cheerfully. “What else can you do?”

Shiina would not let him see her growing unease, but nor would she try to cover up for it with bravado. This was not one of those civilian films about ninja which commoners watched as serious action and real ninja watched as “so bad it’s good” comedy (a genre to which Mitsurugi had introduced her, though he’d made the nearly fatal mistake of doing so on their first date). In the real world, feelings were something precious to be saved for friends and loved ones, not brandished with wild abandon or faked as a tool in battle.

So she was silent, and cold, and her eyes betrayed nothing as she prepared her most powerful offensive ninjutsu.

“Phantom Element: Celestial Legion Technique!”

She vanished again, but only for a split second. In the blink of an eye, the obelisk hill was surrounded by dozens of identical copies of her, all weaving around each other in perfect coordination as they moved in on Gaara.

Countless blades slashed against Gaara at the same time, enough to completely fill his vision.

But only one was real, and only one was blocked.

Shiina retreated again, her hands trembling slightly as she took in what had just happened. The Celestial Legion was a masterpiece a full level of power above her first technique—it manifested faint sound, scent and vibrational cues to go with the visual illusion, making it almost an external genjutsu. It had been _designed_ to counter enemies with enhanced senses.

“That was very pretty,” Gaara said with backhanded approval, “but it didn’t really do anything different to the first one. Do you have anything else?”

Was there any advantage to continuing this engagement? No, Shiina conceded. Team Gensō’s strongest was overmatched, and that was before seeing what Gaara’s teammates could do, or indeed what his own offensive powers were. It was time to run.

Fortunately, she was ready for this possibility. She’d spent many nights dwelling on the humiliating experience of her own powerlessness after the battle with that missing-nin, and it had taken Hina’s rambling yet eerily insightful advice to make her see the answer.

The purpose of a genin was not to be strong and know dozens of techniques. Jōnin like Konnō-sensei, or even Lady Shimakaze herself, weren’t the strongest because they knew many techniques, but because they had decades of experience that taught them how to use what they knew flawlessly. No, a genin had but one purpose—to survive long enough to learn what the shinobi world had to teach them.

So the Celestial Legion had been almost an afterthought. Instead, Shiina had ransacked the secret scrolls until she found something else. In its full form, it was said to be a forbidden technique of the Deva Path. Even the partial form was supposed to be dangerous enough to be considered a suicide technique. But the very edges of it—all Shiina had been able to grasp—were enough to accomplish her purpose. They were enough to keep her team safe.

“Phantom Element: Seraphic Radiance Technique!”

The battlefield was immersed in blinding white light, not a flash but a constant unbearable glow coming from some unknown point. The air audibly hummed with power and the earth trembled. There was a pervasive smell of incense that overwhelmed every other scent.

This technique was both the signal and the guarantee for emergency retreat.

Several seconds later, it faded. A blindfold made of solid sand disintegrated from in front of Gaara’s eyes, and similar ones from Temari and Kankurō’s.

Shiina had not retreated. Before she could move, thick bands of compressed sand, emerging out of nowhere, had caught her ankles and her wrists. She was completely restrained as they lifted her to be bound in a crucified position in mid-air.

Immobilised, vulnerable, she could do nothing to shield herself from Gaara’s gaze. He tilted his head slightly, as if trying to decide what to do with a new toy that had failed to perform to specifications. She could only hope that the rest of her team had made it out. As long as Hina still had the tags, she and Mitsurugi had a chance of passing Stage 2 even without her.

                             

“I take it that since you tried to run you have nothing else to show me?” Gaara asked.

Shiina, doing her best to resign herself to her defeat, craned her neck to try to check that the others had fled and not done something stupid like hanging back to try to rescue her. But her position left her with little ability to look around.

“Oh, don’t worry about your teammates,” Gaara said reassuringly. “I poured some sand down their lungs while you were doing your Celestial Legion technique.”

For a couple of seconds, Shiina could not process the meaning of those words. They were not words that belonged here. She had come to this exam prepared to protect her team from humiliation, from injury, at worst from disastrous accident—the things Konnō-sensei had warned her would be the price of failure. She had not been ready to protect them from deliberate murder.

She had not been ready.

“It’s OK,” Gaara said, in a voice that unnaturally, impossibly, sounded like he was trying to be sympathetic. “I know I’ve made you wait in order to satisfy my own curiosity, and I apologise for that. I will kill you now. By the way, _he_ says your chakra is going to be very interesting.”

The words sounded distant, meaningless, to Shiina. Shiina who had taken responsibility for her team, declared herself leader, accepted their loyalty, and led them here. Here to a place from which there was no way back. Here to a place where laughing, airheaded Hina and incurably dorky, inexplicably charming Mitsurugi would stay forever.

Her eyes refocused as she realised her own fate still hung, literally, in the balance. It was too late to save her teammates. She did not deserve to save herself. But for as long as the shinobi world had existed, even the damned—especially the damned—could tread the path of vengeance.

Could she do it? Yes, Shiina tried to convince herself. If she could find some way to bargain for her freedom, just for long enough to give her an opening…

But Gaara stripped that illusion away. A shape made of sand began to coalesce in the air in front of her chest. Her words died before they were spoken as she comprehended what she was seeing.

The hollow, razor-edged tube began to spin.

The enemy looked her in the eyes. “Thank you very much for showing me your abilities, especially that last one,” he told her seriously. “My life would be very boring without people like you.”

All Bloodline Limits gave their bearers some sort of slightly altered physiology to allow them to access, and endure, their powers. The Phantom Element’s particular gifts included an enhanced nervous system that could withstand extraordinary demands, and, it turned out, retain its function all the way to the final point of brain death.

Shiina could hear a constant, high-pitched noise that she vaguely identified as her own screaming. There was also a burning sensation that was probably pain. She could see the other two enemy ninja, turned away, hands over their ears. If they were so horrified, the fading voice in her mind wondered, why didn’t they try to stop him?

She could see, dimly now, as her own extracted heart floated towards Gaara in a bowl of sand. He picked it up with care, held it over his mouth, and squeezed. Another inconsistency, she thought. Why did he grimace at the taste of blood, when he was the one who’d chosen to drink it?

Shiina, on the ground now, could see a miniature sandstorm growing around Hina’s body, a whirlwind that stripped skin from flesh, flesh from bone, and finally reduced the bone to dust, vanishing even the bloodstains until the only proof that Hina had ever been was a solitary set of tags.

What was left of Sakamoto Shiina willed the storm to come for _her_ , and, as if granting a last wish, the storm obeyed.

“So,” she heard Gaara ask as she was wiped from existence, “want to go see what else we can find?”

-o-

Kinō Satoshi of Leaf Team Twelve studied the note in his hand.

_Dear friend,_

_You do not know me, but I know of you and your romantic woes, and write to express my heartfelt support for your cause. Saitō Aisa is a lovely young woman, and it is a tragedy that the two of you have been forced to keep your relationship secret. But I do understand that if you did not, the age difference between you would surely invite condemnation and ostracism from persons less enlightened than myself. Nor is her older sister’s public oath to turn the full wrath of ANBU on anyone seeking to “take advantage” something to be taken lightly._

_It is true that an ANBU operative has many off-the-books ways to sabotage or even end a genin’s career, while damage to a young woman’s reputation in a village as small as ours could have equally disastrous effects for her future prospects. Thus, I can entirely sympathise with your need for secrecy, and do wish you only the greatest fortune in preserving it._

_As I am writing to you in the spirit of friendship, would you mind fulfilling one small request of mine? I’ve sketched out a very primitive map of the forest below, and you will note that there is a diagonal line marked through a certain area. I would greatly appreciate it if you did not permit anyone to cross this line tonight, from sunset to sunrise. After all, friends are always ready to do favours for each other._

_Rest assured that I will continue to cheer you on from the shadows._

Satoshi could not decide which was more terrifying. There were the contents of the note itself. There was the fact that he’d found it beneath his bedroll as he was packing it up this morning, suggesting that a ninja from a competing team had been in a position to do _whatever they liked_ to him while he slept. And fully as frightening as either of these was the fact that, when he’d timidly suggested to his teammates that perhaps it might be tactically advantageous to set up an ambush _over_ _there_ tonight, both of them had gone pale and virtually tripped over themselves in their haste to agree.

-o-

Naruto faced Shikamaru across the valley, flanked by several shadow clones and positioned so that the fading light of the obelisk a few hundred metres behind him would at least mildly interfere with Team Ten’s vision.

He hadn’t expected Team Ten to go for a direct face-off rather than attempting an ambush, given how suited Shikamaru and Ino’s powers were to a crippling first strike. Now the two teams faced each other on even terms, and that was dangerous for both of them. Team Ten had to have some kind of overwhelming advantage hidden away, and that was making him nervous.

Chōji’s hand was on his Akimichi soldier pill holster. Ino, behind him, had her hands in position to perform the Mind Transfer Technique, her eyes flicking between the members of Team Seven so as not to give away her true target. Shikamaru wasn’t doing _anything_ , and that was suspicious enough to stop Naruto from making a careless first move.

Instead, Naruto was studying the terrain in his peripheral vision, noting sites to leave concealed shadow clones during the initial melee, and any rocks and boulders that would make good Substitution targets. Meanwhile, Sasuke was in an aggressive stance, Sharingan active, watching for the first sign of chakra use. Sakura had a set of shuriken ready to throw.

Seconds ticked away.

Everyone tensed as Shikamaru slowly raised his hands…

“We surrender.”

Everyone, and that included Shikamaru’s own team, froze.

“What?! Are you crazy?!” Ino demanded. “Even if it’s Sasuke…”

Shikamaru looked at her, creating an opening as he briefly moved his attention away from Team Seven. He had to know he was doing it. What _was_ his game?

“It would be a pain to fight them, but the odds _are_ on our side. On the other hand, it's even more likely that one of us will be injured in the process. Meaning there are other teams that it would make more sense for us to fight.”

“But… but…”

“If both of you vote for it, we can fight them. But it’s an unnecessary risk.”

Chōji weighed in. “Ino, has Shikamaru ever led us wrong?”

“Well… no, I guess. But the tags…”

“About that,” Shikamaru said to Naruto. “I have a proposal for you.”

“I’m listening.”

“We’ve got five tags right now. For every tag you let us keep, I’m willing to offer you a comprehensive briefing on one of the top five other teams.”

Without looking, he raised a hand to silence Ino. “Yes, I know. But believe me, these guys are going to clear Stage Two no matter what we do.

“So what do you say?”

Naruto glanced back at his team. “Any objections?”

None were forthcoming. Team Seven was doing pretty well on tags at this point, as Naruto’s clone perimeter defence was proving worth its weight in gold when other teams attempted to ambush them during the obelisks’ draining process.

“All right,” Naruto nodded. “But if any of it is stuff we already know, it doesn’t count.”

Shikamaru found himself a comfortable position to sit down on the edge of a rock outcropping.

“Hidden Grass Team Coup de Grace is Hojō Mari, Fujioka Daichi and Shiki Umatarō. Hojō dresses in green with bracers and shin protectors. Fujioka has a red striped scarf. Shiki wears blue and orange, and is probably colour-blind.

“I’ll start with Shiki. I would consider him the most dangerous. He’s Lightning Element, and he uses it for improved agility and likely one-hit-kill melee strikes. He never takes his eyes off his opponents, and keeps his team covered whenever they’re under threat. He can easily dodge missile attacks. He seems uncomfortable around women, but not around Hojō. He recently suffered a wound to his right forearm. He—”

“I’m not buying it,” Naruto interrupted. “Assuming you haven’t personally watched him fight, how could you have that much detail?”

“Fair question,” Shikamaru nodded to himself. “He was using the Lightning Element to enhance his reflexes during the written test—there’s a characteristic jerkiness about that kind of movement. He effortlessly avoided a number of miniature darts in his peripheral vision while engaging a different opponent. He never made eye contact with female opponents, and preferentially targeted male ones, but he had no problem regularly communicating with his team leader through a combination of eye movements and hand signals. Offensively, he showed a clear preference for single precision attacks over extended engagements, taking advantage of his greater speed. Where possible, he prioritised targets threatening his teammates, even when it was an inefficient use of his abilities. Despite being right-handed, he primarily used his left forearm for blocking, and the form of his motions—”

“Point made,” Naruto acceded. “But there’s no possible way you could’ve observed _everyone_ in that level of detail.”

“Of course. But then, we had three people watching carefully for specific types of tell. Besides, I made sure to prioritise those who were going to pass Stage One.

“Now, shall I go on?”

-o-

It was not long after sunset. Sakura was off setting additional traps within the shadow clone perimeter, while Naruto and Sasuke were standing around pointedly not looking at each other. The tension in the air felt like a static charge building up to dangerous levels.

Eventually, Naruto decided he’d had enough. In some ways, this was a terrible time for a confrontation. But on the other hand, a controlled detonation now might be better than having the whole thing blow up at an unexpected moment.

“Look, Sasuke, if there’s something I did that you’re pissed off about, will you tell me already? I don’t think you’ve said a single normal word to me since Wave.”

Sasuke gave him a look boiling with anger. “Something you did? No, Naruto, you didn’t do anything. Not a damn thing, do you understand?”

“What do you—”

Sasuke advanced on him.

“Do you know what it’s like when your memories and the world around you stop matching up? Do you know what it’s like, suddenly seeing a stranger in somebody who mattered, and wondering if that’s what happened to _him_?

“I looked for you as hard as I could at the Academy, trying to find some trace of the Naruto I remembered. And I found _nothing_. Like I’d invented a worthy rival for myself as a kid, and now I had to grow up and accept that he never existed and this clown was the best I was ever going to get.

“Year after year of idiotic pranks. Year after year of… of being a total loser, a laughingstock, a buffoon. And now, suddenly, I find out it was all an act?! That you’d been there all along, just lying to me, pretending everything from before had never happened?”

“Sasuke, no, I—”

“Don’t you _dare_ deny it. I know who you are now. You’re a liar, a traitor, you’re the worst kind of scum. You pander to the lowest common denominator and throw away everything you are just for the sake of their approval. I can’t believe I ever saw anything good in you.”

Naruto fixed him with a hostile stare. “Now hold on. You don’t get to stand over me in judgement just because you don’t like my choices. Maybe I didn’t do right by you. But who in cold hell are you to say I can’t do what I want to make my own place in the world?”

“Do what you want? All you ever do is do what you want!” Sasuke shouted. “You show off, you play games, never once caring how it affects anybody else! It’s all about having fun, and it doesn’t matter what happens to the people around you. I trusted you, Naruto!”

“I never lied to you, Sasuke! You’re the one who chose to believe—”

Sasuke grabbed him by the front of his jacket. “You never lied to me?! You did _nothing else_! All our years at the Academy, you did nothing else! Every single thing you said, every single thing you did—they were all lies!”

“Let go,” Naruto growled. “You’re the one who stopped talking to me. You’re the one who started acting like you were better than me, just because I managed to find myself a niche and you didn’t. You’re the one who decided that your precious revenge was more important than being a real person with real desires and thoughts and feelings that didn’t all revolve around your bloody brother!”

Naruto tried to slap Sasuke’s hands away. Sasuke pushed him. In the struggle, it was unclear who threw the first punch.

What followed wasn’t a taijutsu battle of ninja against ninja. Skill, tactics, even victory itself became irrelevant as two angry kids punched, kicked and grabbed each other for all they were worth, expressing through violence feelings that words couldn’t convey.

-o-

It was some time later that both of them lay exhausted on the grass, the adrenaline spent.

“Sasuke, I…”

“You abandoned me,” Sasuke said in almost a whisper. “You were my rival, the only one, and you abandoned me.”

The image of Itachi, or at least an adult Sasuke with extra evil, flashed through Naruto’s mind.

“I’m sorry,” Naruto said. “I don’t know how it happened. I was just trying to fit in with the other kids, and then before I knew it… there was this distance between us, and I didn’t know what to do, and then it seemed like you were happier on your own.”

Sasuke sighed. “I’m sorry too. I’ve spent all this time training to fight for what I wanted, but when it came to you, I just gave up and let it happen. I never tried to have a serious talk with you, man to man, when that could’ve solved everything.”

He stood up, adjusted his rumpled clothes, then offered Naruto a hand.

“Rivals?”

Naruto took it and pulled himself up.

“Rivals.”

Naruto fixed his even more battered clothes, and wondered how many bruises he’d have tomorrow.

“I’m sorry about insulting your revenge too,” he said. “I think I know what that’s like now.”

Naruto hesitated. The things he’d found out were major village secrets, although admittedly the Hokage hadn’t said so outright. Then again, the _reason_ they were major village secrets was supposedly to protect his identity as a demon host, and that ship had sailed as far as Sasuke was concerned.

“This is just between you and me, but I found out not long ago that someone deliberately freed the Demon Fox to cause the Night of Tragedy. My parents had to give their lives to seal it into me in order to save everyone.”

He paused.

“Yeah, my dad was the Fourth Hokage. How about that?”

Sasuke goggled.

“Plus I’ve found out that someone in the village made the decision to keep that secret in order to screw with me. Thanks to them, instead of growing up the son of a hero, I grew up, well, me.

“Both of those people have to pay for what they did.”

Sasuke nodded with understanding.

“I didn’t get it before,” Naruto said, “but sometimes people can’t be allowed to get away with what they’ve done, even if they’re so powerful and so well-hidden that you have no idea how you could possibly take them down. So I’m ready to help with your revenge, and I hope you’ll help me with mine. When I become Hokage and you’re a jōnin, I can appoint you a hunter-nin, and give you all the resources you need to track down Itachi. Maybe I can even come with you, and hold off his four elite generals with all the power of Uzumaki Naruto himself while you face him in a final showdown in his inner sanctum.”

Sasuke smirked. “Two things wrong with that picture. I like the hunter-nin idea, but I’m not going to need _your_ help to get there. And by the time you become Hokage, Itachi will be dead of old age and I’ll have better things to do, like reviving my clan. Though I can’t deny I’m curious to see what kind of Hokage you’d make. I respect the Third, but I get the feeling that all he wants is to keep Leaf the same for as long as possible, and that’s not the village I want to live in.”

“Actually,” Naruto remembered, “speaking of reviving your clan, I’ve been meaning to—”

His eyes widened as if forced open. Then he screamed and collapsed, unconscious.

An unfamiliar figure emerged from the shadow of the trees.

 

Sasuke took combat stance and activated his Sharingan.

“What did you do to Naruto?”

The figure, a slender man with long, black hair, unnaturally pale skin and no forehead protector, looked straight at him.

Sasuke felt as if twin shards of ice were piercing his eyes. Barely melting, the cold water ran down through his body, paralysing every organ and freezing his heart and lungs. An arctic wind tore through his mind, sweeping away every thought and leaving only the expectation of certain death.

Then the sensation abruptly disappeared. Sasuke fell to his knees.

“Killing intent,” the man said in the level, slightly distant voice of an academic lecturer, “can be cultivated like any other art. Consider that your first lesson. Consider also what happens when it is multiplied by a number of shadow clones, and experienced all at once.”

Sasuke forced himself to his feet. If this enemy had made sure to disable Naruto before revealing himself, then was Sakura in danger as well?

“If you are wondering about the girl,” the man went on, “she has just had an unfortunate encounter with a venomous snake.”

Sasuke gritted his teeth and made sure his Sharingan was back on.

“Fear not. She will merely be enjoying some healthy sleep until dawn, and most predators know to avoid the scent of the Leaf reticulated viper’s venom. I consider death wasteful.”

The intruder had overwhelmed Sasuke with a single look. Sasuke was aware that this was a battle he could not win, but even so, he was not going to flee and leave him alone with Naruto. Not after everything.

There _were_ signals used by Leaf ninja to request emergency assistance. It seemed strange to use them when the other Leaf teams were currently his opponents, and he didn’t like the idea of revealing his location to all the foreign genin either, and it was horrifying to think that his _best_ -case scenario was drawing the attention of that lunatic in Itama Tower, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Sasuke recalled the appropriate signal flare pattern, and did his best to aim so that the attack, while seemingly aimed at the intruder, would go past him and up into the night sky.

“Fire Element: Phoenix Fire Tech—”

“Hidden Snake Hands!”

A spiralling mass of what seemed to be real, living serpents streamed out of the man’s sleeves and through the air with impossible speed, knocking Sasuke down before disappearing into the grass.

“A good idea, my dear Sasuke, but I’m afraid you’re several decades too early to challenge me. After all, I have engaged your brother in mortal combat and am still alive, after a fashion.”

The man knew who he was.

“Who the hell are you? What do you want?”

“My name is Orochimaru,” the ninja gave a slight bow.

Sasuke had a sudden thought. He clapped his hands together.

“Dispel!”

Nothing happened.

“Ah, yes,” Orochimaru gave a soft laugh. “I heard about Ibiki’s little test. I am most pleased with how that boy has matured. And of course now none of you will ever know for certain whether what you’re experiencing is real or genjutsu, which is a very healthy attitude for a shinobi.”

Something clicked in Sasuke’s mind. He’d seen this man’s picture, looking even more evil than right now, near the back of the Bingo Book where all the truly worst S-rank criminals were to be found. His page had listed a variety of identifying features, but it had neglected to mention that he enjoyed the sound of his own voice. Which was good. It was a chance to stall for time.

“I remember now. You’re a member of Akatsuki!”

“Former member, I’m afraid. We had a certain… disagreement.”

“The disagreement that made you fight Itachi?”

“In part,” Orochimaru admitted. “But that was in the context of a broader conflict over long-term policy. You’ll understand soon.”

Sasuke glanced down. Naruto still wasn’t waking up. As soon as he did, one of them could go for the nearest obelisk while the other kept Orochimaru occupied. That pillar of light would be a signal nobody could ignore.

“That’s all fine,” he said, “but what are you doing in hostile territory talking to a mere genin?”

Orochimaru gave a satisfied smile. “I am here to extend an invitation to you, Uchiha Sasuke. You and I both know that you cannot stay in Leaf forever. Everything you can learn here, Itachi already knows, and I assure you he’s had time to learn many more secrets since.

“I, on the other hand, am willing to take you on as my apprentice, and freely share my decades of knowledge with you without making you jump through pointless hoops of rank and secrecy levels.”

The situation was surreal. A mysterious stranger had appeared out of nowhere and was offering Sasuke the thing he wanted most. But he remembered one of the Academy’s very first teachings: if something seemed too good to be true, it almost certainly was.

“Why on earth would you want to do that?”

Orochimaru looked oddly amused.

“Why, my dear Sasuke, to save the world.”


	22. Chapter 22

“Fūma Shuriken!”

Ginpachi had started out by following Ametatsu’s preferred opening strategy. That was good. Shuriken throws rarely decided battles, but they were a very resource-efficient way of forcing opponents to reveal their defensive skills.

For most ninja, Ametatsu reflected, it would have been insane to attack an aware enemy who had the higher ground (all the obelisks were situated on hills, probably not coincidentally), but Team Earth, Wind and Fire knew how to cancel taijutsu users’ advantages, and the enemy tool user was too exhausted from chakra drain to pose a serious threat.

The Hyūga did what Ametatsu had expected, and ducked under the enormous weapon’s blades as it flew over his head and into the distance. It was something a Byakugan user could afford to do, safe in the knowledge that there were no explosive tags, chakra strings or other nasty surprises attached to the shuriken.

But this was only the beginning.

“Wind Element: Remote Control!”

Ginpachi’s Fūma shuriken, still spinning rapidly, abruptly changed direction and flew back at the Hyūga, unerringly straight as if held by invisible hands.

Its target quickly took a broad stance, twisted his torso…

“Heavenly Spin!”

Now _this_ was what Ametatsu had come for. A rotating field of repulsive chakra completely covered the immediate area around its user. Intense enough to be visible to the naked eye, and fast enough to seem almost solid, it would be capable of knocking away any physical attacks, and probably dispersing ninjutsu as well. The technical term was “absolute defence”, an extremely rare category of protection that could not be pierced by any conventional means. Defeating an enemy who possessed one would truly be a story worth bringing home. And when Sera saw the kind of triumph to which his strategy could lead them…

“Ginpachi! Rotate the other way!”

The Fūma shuriken began to circle the Heavenly Spin forcefield in the opposite direction, being spun by it like two gears rotating against one another. The Hyūga’s own technique kept accelerating Ginpachi’s weapon, leaving him in a position where it would eventually become fast enough to slice through the shield—but the Hyūga couldn’t drop it either without being immediately slaughtered by the blades.

“Tsuchidō, now!”

“Earth Element: Death From Below Technique!”

Sera performed one of her beautiful athletic dives into the ground. Ametatsu couldn’t see her burrow, but he could calculate her trajectory, and of course the Byakugan user could see it directly. Ametatsu didn’t know whether the Heavenly Spin in some way extended beneath the ground, but even then you couldn’t deflect an attack that had nowhere else to go. If the enemy dropped the shield to deal with Sera, Ginpachi would slice him into salad. If he kept it up, Sera’s uppercut and subsequent aerial combo would make the Hyūga wish he had.

Suddenly, the Fūma shuriken was yanked out of its orbit, flew right past the kunoichi some way behind Neji, and performed several elegant circles around her before burying itself deep in a nearby tree. In a stunning display of precision (or possibly luck), she’d apparently hooked the sickle part of her kusari-gama through the hole in the middle of the shuriken, and then used the chain to pull it back.

The girl studied Ginpachi’s weapon for a second, and announced in an exhausted but happy voice, “An authentic ninety-five centimetre Fūma hira-shuriken, ironsand with 0.9% carbon content, Hikari-style layered edges... thank you!”

Without the threat of summary laceration, the Hyūga dropped the Heavenly Spin and dodged. Now he was in position to ambush Sera, who was unaware of this development, when she came out of the ground. Happily, Ametatsu had, of course, anticipated it, and now _he_ would get to personally save her. He’d even do it with the specialised throwing techniques that she, a part-time tool user, had taught him.

“Tsuchidō, Retreat Pattern B!”

The Hyūga was forced to jump out of the way of a hail of kunai thrown in a perfect arc over the curve of the hill. But he had been smart enough not to attempt the Heavenly Spin again, and was now ready for a counterattack. Nevertheless, the kunai bought Sera time to pull some diagonal Earth Walls out of the hillside to slow his advance, while Ginpachi prepared to take advantage of the fact that the Hyūga would have to retreat uphill to dodge a horizontal ranged assault from the Wind Element. Meanwhile, Ametatsu’s next move was obvious.

With speed born of a hundred unsuccessful races with Ginpachi, Ametatsu circumnavigated the presently distracted Hyūga, appeared in front of the tool user kunoichi, and began to form seals.

All shinobi were taught from youth to revere their forefathers, but they were also forced to live with those forefathers’ mistakes—in particular, thinking it was a good idea to put their bloodline’s speciality element into the name of their clan. “Wind Demon” Fūma, “Earthen Halls” Tsuchidō and “Fire Spirit” Kagami did not exactly set them up to take their foes off guard.

Thus, Ametatsu was not remotely surprised as he watched the kunoichi draw a very large reinforced metal fan with a heatproof handle. He couldn’t see the faint layer of chakra running through it, but he knew it was there. Sera had explained to him once, with some amusement, that in the hands of a specialist tool user with good reflexes, such an object could be used to deflect most basic Fire techniques.

Years of endless mockery from the rest of the Kagami Clan, and the perpetual look of disappointment from his father, all acting as if he’d chosen to be born this way, were almost made up for by moments like this. Ametatsu had learned to savour them.

“Water Element: Viscous Water Mass!”

The kunoichi, ready for a deflecting move, didn’t have time (or, of course, the chakra) to fully get out of the way before she and her fan were covered in sticky gel and securely glued to a tree. Unless the enemy had access to a specialised dissolving ninjutsu, that was her out of the fight for good.

Ametatsu turned around. Sera was still being pressed hard, as the Hyūga was watching and learning the rhythm of Ginpachi’s Wind Element barrage, while being able to maintain his focus on another target.

Not a problem. He knew exactly which of Ginpachi’s techniques, coordinated with his own, would let him easily turn the situation around.

“Ginpachi, use—”

Everything went black.

-o-

Neji watched it happen just like he had a hundred times before. Rock Lee, whose stealth and speed were almost as well-trained as his taijutsu, had let himself be forgotten until the very last moment, at which he disabled the Hidden Grass strategist with a single blow to the back of the head.

Lee may have been a fool, but Gai-sensei certainly wasn’t. He knew that it was as inevitable as the rise of the morning sun that Lee would die without the ability to block or counter enemy ninjutsu with his own. So Gai-sensei had patiently explained, quite a few times, that Lee could not be a front-line taijutsu user, could not allow himself to be targeted by the enemy under any circumstances. But how did one put a melee fighter with no auxiliary skills into a support role? It had taken quite a long time to figure out the right approach, and a certain amount of compromise between pragmatism and Gai-sensei and Lee’s incoherent un-shinobi-like ethics. In the end, Lee had ended up as a sort of honourable assassin, a figure that vanished from the enemy’s awareness, only to suddenly strike them down with his superior martial arts (and nothing sensible like, say, poison).

With his Byakugan, Neji observed as Lee once again vanished around the side of the hill and began to plot an invisible path to his next target. This time, the Fūma would be the one faced with an impossible choice: keep his focus on Neji while knowing that a hidden enemy was waiting for him to show just one opening, or turn to look for Lee and give Neji the freedom of action he needed to eliminate the Earth Element kunoichi.

-o-

The worst part of it all, in Neji’s opinion, had been extracting Tenten from the sticky gloop afterwards. Every second with a teammate down left them vulnerable (though they’d already made the choice to sacrifice most of her combat power for the day in exchange for more tags), and entrusting Lee with delicate work was like using siege weaponry to trim your nails. It wasn’t that Neji had a problem with manual labour per se—during his time with Gai-sensei he’d had no choice but to learn “the shining glory of youth in full bloom” through regular physical exertion. But there were limits, and one of them was handling a filthy substance that resembled mucus in all the worst ways, and would doubtless be murder to get out of his uniform.

-o-

Orochimaru wanted him to save the world? Sasuke enjoyed his manga more than he would ever admit, but he wasn’t Naruto, and he knew that there was a solid line between fiction and reality.

“What does that even mean?” he demanded.

“For now,” Orochimaru said, “suffice it to say that something very dangerous is coming, and a well-trained Sharingan user will be essential in preventing unprecedented disaster. If you desire details, I will be happy to share them in a more secure location.”

“You’re an S-rank criminal, and you’re not even trying to pretend not to be evil,” Sasuke pointed out. “And you’re telling me you only want my power in order to do good?”

Orochimaru gave him a world-weary look. “Yes, the snake theme does somewhat work against me there, doesn’t it?

“Still,” he added, seemingly to himself, “it’s infinitely more dignified than slugs, or _toads_.

“But let us for the moment set aside the fact that the end of the world would inconvenience me no less than anyone else. I do not view myself as evil, my dear Sasuke. It is not something people often do. I have seen the face of true evil—Akatsuki contained little else—and the crucial difference is in one’s motivations. Mine have only ever been humanitarian.”

A gust of wind blew through the clearing, catching Orochimaru’s hair. He scowled briefly, and ran a hand through it as if to reset it to its original state.

“The hour grows late,” he said. “Let us debate philosophy on a different occasion.

“I am offering you a chance to attain your heart’s desire. With my assistance, you will grow powerful enough to defeat Itachi—I myself failed only for lack of the Sharingan. And while I am no guide to reviving a clan, at least using traditional methods, I am told that there are a number of attractive women among my assistants, and I myself can vouch for their genetic superiority.”

Sasuke looked at Orochimaru again, seeing nothing in his expression that would offer any clue as to his true intentions. Even with the Sharingan, he was struggling to read the missing-nin’s body language, almost as if Orochimaru belonged to some alien species that was wearing human form only as a matter of convenience.

“How do I know I can trust you?”

Orochimaru laughed. “My dear boy, if I wanted to kill you, you would now be dead. If I wanted to abduct you, you would now be halfway to my nearest base. The difference in power between us is so vast that I do not _need_ to deceive you.

“Now, I suggest that you make your decision. You have done well in trying to take advantage of my loquacious tendencies, but a good shinobi factors their own flaws into any plan. Consider that your second lesson. Consider also that I had all the time in the world to prepare before approaching you, and to take steps to secure a significant amount of time before anyone else can draw near.”

Sasuke inwardly cursed. He really _was_ outclassed, and if Orochimaru was to be believed, no rescue was forthcoming. That meant his destiny would be decided by the answer he gave right now.

He couldn’t deny that Orochimaru’s reasoning echoed his own hidden fears. Itachi had been a prodigy, skyrocketing through the Academy to jōnin then ANBU status faster than any ninja on record. Sasuke was already lagging behind him in that respect. He would need an edge—a big edge—if he wanted to so much as catch up to Itachi in power, never mind overtake him.

It was the dilemma he’d awakened to while being lectured by Morino Ibiki, come back to haunt him before he could take time to come to terms with it. He could have everything he wanted on a silver plate—but he’d have to abandon the people who trusted him, and betray the village. If ever a choice had “path to becoming the next Uchiha Itachi” written on it in big shining neon letters, this was it.

Then again, at least no one would be massacred, and Sasuke wasn’t blinded by zeal this time. Joining Orochimaru was the rationally best decision for fulfilling his goals, and while Leaf could never welcome back a traitor, there was no law that said Sasuke couldn’t serve his village from outside as a missing-nin once his objective was complete. It was what he’d once desperately tried to believe about Itachi, but no strategic advantage could be worth what his brother had done.

Besides, it wasn’t like Sasuke couldn’t send them some sort of message apologising and explaining his decision (would it have killed Itachi to do that?). Even if they could not forgive him his betrayal, he thought Naruto at least would understand. And if Naruto really did become Hokage, he might have the power to pardon Sasuke, or at minimum remove him from the Bingo Book and thus open up the potential for some sort of official cooperation.

Or Sasuke could say no. Then he’d be betraying himself and his ambitions, planting a dagger in the back of the person he’d been all these years. Could he survive such a betrayal? Would he live a life of eternal shame as a coward and hypocrite who lacked the conviction to see through the things that mattered most? Even if others praised him for his wisdom, _he’d_ always know that he was a man who could not be trusted to achieve anything meaningful, a ninja who could not make sacrifices for a greater goal. Was this the kind of decision that forever haunted people’s lives, and stood behind the occasional shinobi suicide?

At the same time, there was another part of him, one which had just started to wake up after many years of coma, and he knew rejecting Orochimaru would nourish it. Friends. Family. A place to belong. He’d spent years focusing solely on his revenge, believing that these were things he could never have again. Now, encounter after encounter was making him wonder whether his own beliefs might be the greatest obstacle to his happiness. If he gave up on his old self and let it crumble, was there a chance that he’d find a better new one beyond the leap of faith?

But things weren’t that simple in the shinobi world. If he refused, would Orochimaru then let him live? Would he let Naruto and Sakura live? And if he agreed, where was the guarantee that Orochimaru—a veteran ninja and known traitor—wasn’t going to outsmart him and use his consent to set him up for some kind of devastating fall?

“I need time to think,” Sasuke finally told him. “This isn’t the kind of decision you make on the spur of the moment.”

Orochimaru nodded. “I can respect that. But the longer you wait, my dear Sasuke, the more your options will narrow, and eventually it will be too late, perhaps for all of us.

“When you have your answer, leave an envelope in the mailbox of the boarded-up Kisaragi Housewares shop in the Southeast District. White for yes, manila for no. The contents are immaterial. If you agree, I will arrange immediate extraction.

“If you refuse, rest assured that you will come to no harm. When the time comes, I feel quite certain you will change your mind. And if any circumstance should prevent you from using this means of communication, I will soon arrange another.

“Oh, and I would suggest that you do not mention this conversation to anyone else. The last few times I spoke to Leaf shinobi one-on-one, they ended up subjected to extensive, invasive and traumatic tests to ensure that I had not turned them into sleeper agents or biological weapons—as if I lacked any sense of subtlety. I suppose they might be more lenient with someone of your obvious value, but even if you were officially cleared, you would never be rid of the stigma of mistrust. And Leaf’s discovery of my presence would in any case not disrupt any of my current plans, or I would have chosen a different time to meet you.”

Orochimaru began to move towards Naruto. “Now all that remains is to deal with the demon host, and then I shall bid you good night.”

“Hold it.” Sasuke stepped in his way. “You’re not touching Naruto. Or Sakura. Not if you want me to even consider your offer.”

Orochimaru looked surprised. “You’re acting as if I wish to harm him. That is the absolute last thing I would do. The boy’s safety is paramount, and that Sarutobi-sensei would be insane enough to allow him on the front lines says volumes about the modern shinobi world’s skewed priorities. The same, of course, could be said in regard to you.”

“Why do you care about Naruto? Are you planning to use the Demon Fox for your own gain?”

“You see,” Orochimaru lamented, “this is the flaw in the entire classified information system. Its curators protect information that should be shouted from the rooftops, purely on the off-chance that someone will someday find a way of exploiting it for evil.

“In the days just after the Sage of Six Paths departed, my dear boy, people thought to rid themselves of the Demon Beasts by sealing them into hosts who would then commit ritual suicide—the so-called ‘jinchūriki’ or ‘power of human sacrifice’. But they discovered that a slain Demon Beast would eventually reform—and worse, that they seemed to adapt, taking less time to return with every ‘death’. That is why killing a Demon Beast is the absolute worst thing you can do, since it may ultimately lead to them becoming invincible.”

Sasuke was stunned. If that was true, how could people keep allowing demon hosts out on the battlefield time after time? How much short-sightedness would it take to trade a temporary advantage for the risk of catastrophe a few generations down? Or, it occurred to him with more than a little horror, could the notoriously super-intelligent Demon Beasts themselves have somehow manipulated shinobi culture to make this sort of thing standard practice?

“Multiple approaches have been attempted to deal with the problem,” Orochimaru noted. “Sealing the hosts in inaccessible prisons ended in disaster. A lifetime of isolation, however gentle, progressively damages any ordinary human mind. Doubly so a mind that experiences little but the Demon Beast’s endless attempts to bypass the seal and gain control. Surrender becomes a matter of time. Meanwhile, the stigma against demon hosts, as well as the persistent external threat of abduction or assassination, rendered it impossible for them to lead innocent civilian lives. In the end, guided by a mixture of compassion, pragmatism and inevitable temptation, the village leaders chose to send the hosts into battle, under the reasoning or pretext that they could earn acceptance through service to the village.”

“Hold on,” Sasuke said as a disturbing thought occurred to him, “all that aside, why don’t the Demon Beasts kill _themselves_ until they can come back straight away?”

“Who can say?” Orochimaru tightened his lips, apparently unhappy to admit ignorance. “The most natural answers are that they cannot, or that there is a price to be paid for their death of which we are unaware, or perhaps that they are governed by some ethical code which proscribes any form of suicide. Regardless, there exist unknown principles that shackle them, and we must consider that one of the few sources of hope for humanity.”

Orochimaru fell silent for a few seconds.

“It seems I have not modelled your motivations correctly—an inevitable risk when using outdated information. Allow me to revise my offer. Not only am I willing to grant you an apprenticeship, my dear Sasuke, but I also offer sanctuary to your two teammates. As I have said, I have a very strong interest in ensuring Uzumaki Naruto’s safe containment. The girl is not relevant to my plans, but if you so desire, I can provide her with the training and augmentation she needs to become useful to you.”

“I—I still need to think about it,” Sasuke told him, his mind spinning. Everything he wanted—assuming Orochimaru was speaking the truth—without the need to betray his teammates? It was a possibility he hadn’t even begun to consider.

But there was no point in considering it, Sasuke reluctantly admitted. There was no reason for Naruto or Sakura to agree, not with so little to gain and so much to lose compared to him. After all, why would they need sanctuary when they already had all the protection of Leaf?

“You will find,” Orochimaru’s voice broke into his thought process, “that in the times to come, this village will cease to be a safe refuge for those close to you. If you truly value their lives, then you will factor this into your considerations. Meanwhile, as a gesture of goodwill, I will instruct my assistants that all _three_ of you are potential allies, and are not to suffer any damage that is beyond my reconstructive abilities.

“Now, I must take my leave before dear Anko notices the patterns within the silence,” he said. “Think well on my offer, and on the boundaries between caution and cowardice.

“I shall await your reply, and in the meantime I wish you fortune in the rest of this meaningless endeavour.”

The figure in front of Sasuke disintegrated into a thousand tiny snakes, all of which swiftly slithered into the shadows. Sasuke was left wondering whether he’d really been speaking to a man at all.


	23. Chapter 23

Stage Two was over. Team Seven had overcome all of its opponents and now stood proud among the victors. True, there had been a few moments when things could have gone either way—especially when that opportunistic scout had taken Naruto out with a psychic ninjutsu, while Sakura, in what couldn’t possibly have been a coincidence, had simultaneously run afoul of one of the Forest of Death’s natural hazards. But Sasuke had managed to save the day, though he was curiously reticent about the details. Naruto fully intended to trick him into revealing more later, in the hope that the full truth would be something embarrassing.

To Naruto’s relief, Hinata’s team had made it through unscathed. In fact, there was a very strong Leaf presence among the survivors, as all of Naruto’s year were included in the eight passing teams, as well as (unfortunately) Neji’s team and (even more unfortunately) Kabuto’s. Perhaps this merely represented the high proportion of the host village’s genin among the examinees, but Naruto couldn’t help but wonder.

Naruto and Hinata exchanged experiences, including what they knew about what the different teams had done to get through the exam. Her own team, she told him, had made use of its natural advantage in being completely sensory-spec. Between Kiba and Akamaru’s sharpened senses, Shino’s scouting bugs and Hinata’s Byakugan, it had been effortless for them to assess enemy strength and avoid any targets they didn’t think they could overcome, while identifying the perfect timing to attack those they could. Then there were the cases when an entire enemy team would suddenly collapse from temporary paralysis, allowing leisurely retrieval of their tags. Hinata had put her foot down about Kiba and Shino’s other plans, which involved an enemy ninja coming down with horrific and inexplicable symptoms, at which point one of the two would step in and politely explain (or brashly threaten) that there would be similar consequences for both of the others if tags were not transferred in a speedy fashion.

Ino-Shika-Chō, it seemed, had made it by taking out teams weaker than themselves and selling information to stronger ones. Circumstantial evidence suggested that a number of top teams had rushed to take each other on in order to exploit their new advantage, clearing the way for Shikamaru’s team to quietly progress up the ranks.

As for Neji’s team, Rock Lee had only been too happy to give them an excited account of their adventures. Apparently, Neji was not interested in careful evasion. Instead, his strategy revolved around setting traps (Tenten, whose name he’d finally learned, was a prodigy there) and making use of well-timed ambushes, as well as watching others’ battles to learn their abilities, and then swooping in to take out the winner.

Kabuto’s team… Naruto was _not_ going over to talk to Kabuto.

Then there were the others. Nobody wanted to speculate about how the team from Hidden Sand had acquired its vast number of tags, and it was telling that the other winning teams were the ones who had stayed as far away from them as possible. There were already plenty of rumours flowing about them, mainly courtesy of the failed teams who’d contested with them during Stage One or narrowly avoided them during Stage Two.

A random sampling: Gaara was a convicted mass murderer recruited to boost Sand’s numbers after the Wind Country’s Daimyō decided to cut their state funding. Gaara was the Kazekage’s own son, with free access to his library of forbidden techniques. Gaara was an ancient captive spirit recently unsealed to do Sand’s bidding, and the “purpose” tattoo was really a seal that kept him focused on his task instead of going berserk. When he was still little, Gaara’s mother had tried to assassinate him upon realising that she’d brought a monster into this world, and he had killed her in cold blood.

Hinata herself had a contribution to make to the rapidly-growing mythos. She quietly told Naruto that she’d once caught the red-haired boy at the edge of her Byakugan range, and observed that he seemed surrounded by a broad haze of chakra reminiscent of nothing so much as Naruto’s own Dimensional Anchor Technique. Unwilling to move any closer, she’d asked Shino to send in some insects, since they had no maximum range, just a long travel time to get there and back.

A second after they entered the haze, most of them died instantly. The few that survived fled back to Shino in accordance with their instructions, traces of Gaara’s chakra still lingering on them. But the second they settled on his skin, they were destroyed as well, by some unknown means, and then the boy had turned around and _looked at her_.

Stepping away from a memory that would probably return in Hinata’s nightmares, they turned to the other unfamiliar teams. To Naruto’s delight, Hidden Sound were there, ripe for the most horrific revenge ever seen by any Chūnin Exam invigilator. The deadly glares sent his way said louder than words that the feeling was mutual.

The only other team were those Hidden Grass guys whose leader seemed terrified of Shikamaru. They were putting on a good show of bravado, but it was obvious that they were not comfortable being so hugely outnumbered by Leaf ninja. They seemed especially attentive towards Neji’s team—it did not surprise Naruto in the least that the pretentious scumbag had a gift for making enemies.

-o-

Naruto’s enjoyable and only occasionally terrifying conversation with Hinata was interrupted by a soft tap on his shoulder.

“Would you mind lending me a moment of your time, my friend? Two exam stages later, I’m sure we have a wealth of information to share with each other.”

Naruto did his best to suppress a shudder. He’d been desperately hoping to avoid any further interaction with Kabuto after that whole thing about favours, which practically screamed “I have blackmail material on you and look forward to using it.” Given time, he could have come up with countermeasures, perhaps learned some major secret of Kabuto’s to use as leverage, but of course the experienced information broker had managed to pre-empt him.

After a couple of seconds of internal flailing, Naruto managed to come up with one slightly counter-intuitive option.

“No,” he said, “I think I’m happy staying where I am.” He couldn’t be blackmailed if Kabuto didn’t get a chance to be alone with him.

For a split second, Kabuto looked taken aback. Then he rallied.

“Now, don’t say that. We’re not just talking about the basic stats that I showed you on the first card in the set. We’re talking a comprehensive array of intelligence that could make or _break_ an aspiring chūnin depending on what hands it ended up in.”

Kabuto fanned out a set of cards that had appeared out of nowhere in his hand, holding them so that only Naruto could see them (and coincidentally layering them with a bunch of others so that the overlapping text could not be read by the Byakugan). Naruto was startled to see that his card was not among them. But then he read the names.

Haruno Sakura. Uchiha Sasuke. _Hyūga Hinata_.

He resisted a sudden intense urge to punch Kabuto in the face.

“Fine,” he gritted his teeth. “Let’s go.”

-o-

Kabuto’s eyes slowly swept over the walls and ceiling of the empty storeroom.

“Yes, I think that should afford us ample privacy, don’t you?”

“So what do you want?” Naruto asked, trying to keep the hostility out of his voice for now.

“To debrief you, of course. Was that not obvious?”

Naruto frowned at the choice of words. “If you’re going to blackmail me for information, why don’t you just say so? I don’t see why I should play along with your games in private.”

“Blackmail?” Kabuto asked, a note of disappointment in his voice. “Then it’s as I thought. I was wrong to give you the benefit of the doubt. _Think,_ my friend. Remember when we first met. Why did I show you that card?”

Naruto had wondered about that. It seemed like there was no need for Kabuto to announce his blackmailing abilities in advance, instead of just walking up to Naruto at an opportune moment and going “I know such-and-such of your secrets; now do as I say if you don’t want them getting out.” So on the assumption that Kabuto’s objective during that interaction had _not_ been to set up for blackmail…

It hit him all at once in a burst of stunning clarity, like an unexpected snowball to the back of the head. “You were showing me that you had access to top-secret information, not just stuff anyone could gather with enough effort, and that you were able _and_ willing to do something definitely illegal in the middle of a room filled with other Leaf genin and probably monitored by the examiners.”

Kabuto nodded. “Meaning…”

“You’re secretly an examiner yourself.”

“Close enough.” The smile returned to Kabuto’s face. “I’m not here to examine anyone, not exactly. Among other reasons, I am attending this particular exam in order to ensure _your_ safety, along with that of Uchiha Sasuke. It would have been a major blow to Leaf if a foreign nation had taken the opportunity to kidnap or assassinate you during Stage Two.”

“We’ve had some pretty close calls,” Naruto observed. “What if I’d been sliced up by Hidden Sound, for example?”

“Their objective wasn’t to kill you,” Kabuto said. “But I _was_ on hand to prevent any accidental fatalities. It was well within my capabilities as a jōnin.”

“All right,” Naruto accepted, still suspicious. “But if that card was meant to clue me in to who you were, why did you have to sound like you were trying to blackmail me?”

Kabuto gave Naruto an ironic look. “Because a certain someone threatened me in front of a crowd of witnesses, and I did need a plausible response that reassured my ‘clients’ that I was still in control of the situation.

“When you first spoke to me, I thought I was being presented with an opportunity to subtly indicate that I was an ally, and to establish common ground for future cooperation. But then you jumped to the diametrically wrong conclusion. Did you honestly think that someone intelligent and resourceful enough to trade in classified information would then be foolish enough to do so right in front of two hundred witnesses and Morino Ibiki himself?”

Naruto chose to treat the question as rhetorical.

“I must admit,” Kabuto went on, “that I had at least hoped you’d work the truth out in the interim, instead of forcing me to play the villain a second time. But never mind. Later, if you feel the need, you can go to either of the chief examiners and confirm my rank and the fact that I’m here on a mission. If you choose to check those two facts with them, do try not blow my cover to everyone else in the tower.

“Now, I wouldn’t want to keep your beloved waiting, so shall we move on to the debriefing?”

“Hold on,” Naruto said. “If you were assigned to protect me, why not just tell me so from the start? And why should I be reporting to you rather than directly to the examiners?”

Kabuto looked at Naruto appraisingly for a few seconds.

“It’s easier for me to carry out my mission if there’s no chance of you accidentally giving away my presence. That’s not an issue anymore, so I am free to tell you in order to secure your cooperation. Besides, my friend, despite your impulsiveness and mistrust of authority, you do happen to have a high rating within your clearance category. You have a narrow social circle, you habitually watch your words and you are loyal to your fellow ninja. You’ve had plenty of opportunities to contact foreign ninja, but you haven’t exploited them to your own gain, even though you know a very rare and valuable forbidden technique. There is also a standing ban in all villages on torturing enemy demon hosts for information, for obvious reasons. Factors of that kind do add up in your favour.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about me.”

“And there we hit the line for what your flexible clearance can let me explain,” Kabuto said. “As for why you should trust me over them, _someone_ has been leaking information relating to the exam. It’s one reason why I’ve been giving everyone opportunities to sell me classified secrets. But while I do trust myself, and I’ve observed you closely enough to know you haven’t had the chance to do anything, the examiners are not yet clear of suspicion.

“Sometimes,” Kabuto noted in a slightly different, reflective voice, “I do miss the days when I only had one mission at a time.”

Then his attention returned to Naruto. “In any case, since you and Uchiha Sasuke are priority targets, the high-ups need to know about any suspicious incidents either of you, or Haruno Sakura for that matter, witnessed during Stage Two. Unfortunately, protocol says you have to be debriefed one at a time, so there goes the rest of my break.”

-o-

“Well done, maggots!”

Morino Ibiki was regrettably absent this time, meaning that there was nothing to stop Anko unleashing the full force of her personality.

“Your performance out there was pretty good—better than the last Chūnin Exam for sure—so I’m prepared to promote you all to caterpillars!” Anko announced.

“Now, I know you’re all waiting to hear your exact rankings, and I can’t wait… to disappoint you!” She grinned happily. “From here on out, any information you earn, you have to earn yourself. It’s a matter of realism, and also of sadism.

“Any of you who’re into that, see me after the exam,” she added. “I’ll teach you what it means to be a _real_ specialist tool user.”

She gave a pause during which the genin who knew what she meant tried to decide to what extent she was joking, given that apart from Kabuto’s team, the ages of those present varied from twelve to about fifteen.

“OK, I do have to tell you the exam rules, my dears, because otherwise it would be chaos. And while I love chaos more than you can imagine, the Hokage decided to be boring and overrule me.”

Her speech was interrupted by an unexpected hand in the air.

“Can you teach _me_ how to be a real specialist tool user?” Tenten asked loudly in the tones of someone who’d finally finished screwing up their courage and was now letting it all out in one big burst.

Anko blinked, her momentum starting to flicker like a campfire running out of fuel.

“That’s, um, very advanced of you, my dear,” she said. “You remind me of myself when I was a genin, minus the blood and the screaming.”

Then she brightened up again. “Unfortunately for you, Maito Gai is the most strait-laced man I’ve met in all my decades of fun, and at your age you’re going to need his approval before I show you the ropes. So while I’d _love_ to take the burning enthusiasm of your youth and use it to set various things on fire, you’re going to have to take a cold shower for now.

“So. I’m sure you’re all waiting for me to explain how Stage Three is going to work. And you can keep waiting. Because one thing I did manage to get out of the Hokage, in spite of his fun-hating tendencies, is a little something I’m going to call… Stage Two Point Five!”

There was a near-universal groan.

“Here’s the deal. We’ve had you work in teams for the written exam. We’ve had you work in teams for the survival mission. And _none_ of that simulates the real life of a ninja, where you can get assigned random partners you only know by sight, and told that your life or death depends on learning them like the back of your hand within a few days or hours.

“Can you see where this is going, my dears? That’s right… 2v2 combat!”

-o-

The rules were, on the face of it, quite simple. All of them would be randomly divided into teams of two, and then the teams would be paired off against each other in a straightforward deathmatch to unconsciousness or surrender. Anko assured them that, while the selection was completely random (managed by an expensive device with a random number generator, even), by sheer happenstance nobody would get paired or faced with one of their teammates and receive a familiarity advantage.

Upon entering the arena (apparently, Itama Tower had one now that it was mainly used as a training facility), each team would be given one minute to plan strategy, while surrounded by a soundproof glass barrier. Of course, if anyone could read lips or otherwise spy on enemy plans, more power to them.

After a minute, the barrier would retract, and battle would begin. The catch was that as soon as someone managed to disable an opponent (or force them to surrender), they would also leave the arena. There would be no two-on-one battles unless a team deliberately managed to set it up that way, and the partners would also be forced to keep an eye on each other, since each could either focus on teamwork, or try to take out an opponent as soon as possible and win, even if it left the other member at a disadvantage. Anko explained this as the equivalent of getting an unreliable teammate, such as a coward or a glory hog, though Naruto suspected that she just wanted to get an early preview of the famous one-on-one Finals.

The one other rule was that, in accordance with the principle of not getting any information you didn’t earn, there would be no spectators, just cameras for the benefit of the examiners and a judge to end the match or otherwise intervene if necessary. This, at least, was a straightforwardly sensible rule, since it meant that people who would end up fighting each other in the Finals didn’t get an unfair advantage if, say, one of them was forced to reveal a lot of techniques while the other didn’t due to an advantageous match-up.

The display screen, taking up a whole wall for no obvious purpose other than drama, began to blink, and everyone stopped what they were doing as their fates were decided.

-o-

“Oh, one more thing.” Anko gave some sort of signal and the screen paused just as the wait became unbearable. “Does anyone know what happened to Waterfall Team Gensō? The one with the swordswoman in blue and white who always looks like she’s got a naginata up her ass?”

No one spoke up.

“Damn, must’ve been eaten by the giant flying rafflesia again. Well, now I know what to do with the losers from Stages Two and Two Point Five. You guys will be helping me search the Forest of Death with a fine-tooth comb. And that will be literal if I think you’re not working hard enough. The Hokage is going to have my guts for very sexy garters if we can’t account for every genin that went in.”

-o-

The screen reactivated.

“First match…

“Hyūga Neji…

“and Haruno Sakura…

“versus…

“Hyūga Hinata…

“and Yamanaka Ino.”

They really were amazing things, random number generators.

-o-

Ino turned to Hinata. “Can you leave Sakura to me? I’ve been waiting to see what kind of tricks she’s picked up since she graduated.”

“Actually, I was going to suggest that you use your ninjutsu to back me up while I fight Neji and Sakura. From what I’ve seen, Neji normally fights alone, with the rest of the team coordinating their support around him, so he won’t be good at pairing up with another taijutsu user. I mean, I _think_ Sakura’s a taijutsu user. I don’t mean to be rude, but I haven’t really seen her do very much yet.”

“Nah,” Ino shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong, it sounds like a good plan, but I’ve been briefed by Shikamaru. He says that the second Neji decides I’m a threat, he’s going to go right for me, and he’ll go through me like I’m rice paper. I’m not saying I don’t trust you to protect me or anything, but if he’s stronger than you I’m screwed, and if he’s weaker than you, then you don’t need my support to take him. You with me on this?”

“I—I guess.”

-o-

“Haruno Sakura,” Neji began. “I have a favour to ask of you.”

“Me? Really?”

Neji nodded solemnly. “You must tell Uzumaki Naruto to abandon his flirtations with Lady Hinata. He refuses to heed my warnings, but perhaps he will listen to someone he trusts. If he persists in inflicting his attentions upon her, he will bring certain disaster not only on her but also on himself.”

Sakura thought for a second.

“Sorry, can’t help you there. As far as I’m concerned, those two are good for each other. The more people to try and keep Naruto on the strait and narrow, the better. And even though Hinata must be crazy to date him, it seems to make her happy, and that’s a big deal for a girl who always looks like she’s scared of something.

“Why don’t we forget Naruto and talk team strategy?”

Neji looked as if she’d just invited him for a refreshing roll in the mud.

“Do whatever you want, Haruno, as long as you stay out of my way.”

-o-

“Begin!”

Sakura immediately broke into a run. She needed to close the gap to Ino before she got hit with the Mind Transfer Technique, and she’d picked up at least a couple of tips from watching her teammates fight.

“Clone Technique! Substitution Technique! Substitution Technique! Substitution Technique!”

Half a dozen Sakuras ran at Ino in a spread-out formation, zigzagging across each other’s paths, the original now well and truly hidden among them.

Ino didn’t waste chakra on trying to guess the correct target. Instead, she met the assault with a taijutsu defence, low sweep followed by spinning back kick followed by a series of punches. Team Sakura happily engaged her.

The Sakuras avoided direct contact while concealing the original’s attacks, and whenever Ino managed to pop a couple, all the survivors would simultaneously use the Clone Technique again (or pretend to), replenishing their numbers. It wasn’t a normal use of clones, compensating for their fragility instead of letting it dictate one’s tactics, but it was working surprisingly well.

Ino took hit after hit from the real Sakura, wherever she was. She was forced to constantly stay on the defensive, retreating and circling while she waited for opportunities to strike back.

But of the two of them, Ino had always been the sensible, grounded one. Enough so, in fact, to actually _ask_ her teammates for advice.

After some careful manoeuvring, she popped a couple of clones with one of her best combos, then jumped back and to the right instead of pressing her advantage. “Hey, Sakura, do you know what ‘enfilade’ means?”

Sakura just had time to realise that she and all of her clones were lined up in a row, and Ino was standing at one end.

“Mind Transfer Technique!”

-o-

The battle was over. Ino had sent her chakra in to overwhelm Sakura’s mind, using the Yamanaka Clan’s secret methods to pour all her consciousness into assuming direct control, unhindered by the fact that the chakra had no direct connection to her body. Now all she had to do, as Sakura, was raise her hand and announce, “I surrender.”

Her mental projection formed, took in the curiously familiar sunlit plain of Sakura’s unshaped inner world—and was suddenly taken off her feet by a massive uppercut.

“ _Finally_.”

Looking up from the ground, Ino saw a brief glimpse of a taller, more muscular Sakura, with eerie yellow eyes, before the punches began raining down. Ino tried to block the first few, but she was being assaulted with unrelenting, monstrous strength, and before long she could do nothing but try to shelter her face with her arms, while her body was battered, bruising, bleeding, her ribs beginning to crack…

“Inner Me, what the hell?”

There were two Sakuras. How were there two Sakuras, Ino thought flatly. That was a jōnin-level mental defence used by people trained in (or against) psychic ninjutsu. Even Sakura couldn’t have learned something like that out of a book.

Ino needed to dispel her technique. Now, before the evil Sakura decided to finish the job and Ino’s physical form got taken out by the backlash. But she was hurting, and scared, and the focus she needed wouldn’t come.

Inner Sakura straightened up.

“Don’t mind me, just destroying Ino for you. By the time I’m finished with her, she’ll be curling up into a ball whenever she so much as _thinks_ of the colour pink.”

“You’re not supposed to ‘destroy’ anything!” the normal-looking Sakura exclaimed. “She’s my rival. I have to prove I’m better than her, fair and square, otherwise there’s no point!”

They were _arguing_. Like they were different people. Defensive techniques didn’t do that. Scary possessing demons from Yamanaka campfire stories did that. The kind that swallowed careless little genin whole.

The evil Sakura turned to face her counterpart. “This is what I was created for, isn’t it? This is why I exist. To wipe out every last trace of Ino’s domination from your mind. I couldn’t stop doing it even if I wanted to, which, by the way, I don’t.”

Sakura had an inner demon designed especially to wipe out Ino. Ino was about to become a campfire story.

“You have to,” the other Sakura, her only hope of survival, said fiercely. “I am telling you to stop.”

Inner Sakura gave a low, harsh laugh. “You and I both know I’m stronger than you. Always have been. Again, you made me to be this way. You made me to be everything you couldn’t. In a way, you’ve wanted me to be the real you all along. So if you really want to force this? Fine. It might be fun being the dominant persona.”

Tension crackled in the air as the two Sakuras faced off against each other. Ino didn’t dare to move (and wasn’t sure if she could), but simply watched the confrontation.

 

Even a few days ago, it might have worked, Sakura Prime reflected. She wasn’t good at dealing with conflict, and she was even worse when that conflict was internal. She wasn’t a maker of tough decisions, she could admit in the (relative) privacy of her mind. She wasn’t someone who faced up to difficult truths, or a person of deep inner strength and integrity like her parents kept telling her she ought to be.

But a few days could be a long time.

She looked at Ino’s mental projection—Ino as she saw herself, not as she was seen by others—and it all clicked into perspective.

Ino had gorgeous blonde hair. Sakura had exotic pink hair.

Ino had a tall, slender build. Sakura… was actually almost the same height now, and slimmer.

Ino was brave. Sakura had faced down a rampaging Demon Beast and bared her heart in order to save the boy she loved.

Ino was cunning and sly. Sakura rocked tests and set traps capable of taking out chūnin candidates.

Ino was confident. Sakura’s confidence was in the middle of beating her up.

Ino was compassionate. Sakura… well, Naruto was still alive, so that probably counted.

“You were wrong,” she said to Inner Sakura.

Inner Sakura stared at her blankly, as if she didn’t know the meaning of the word.

“I can’t go back to being that little girl. She doesn’t exist anymore. You spent years fighting alongside me to stop being that Sakura… and we won.”

Inner Sakura sneered. “Oh, you think you don’t need me now? Is that it? You think you can face the outer world on your own? I’m our _spine_. I’m the thing that holds us together. Without my pride and my anger, you’re just a helpless child sitting there waiting for the grown-ups to tell you what to do.”

She cracked her knuckles. “Enough talking. Let’s throw down. It’s time for you to learn what inner strength really means.”

Maybe those words, in the context of this confrontation, were the final trigger. For the first time, it began to occur to Sakura Prime that Inner Sakura might have been wrong all these years about what inner strength _was_.

“You’re right,” she said calmly. “You _are_ stronger than me.

“But I’m not alone, and you’re not stronger than _us_.”

The line of Sakuras behind her stretched from horizon to horizon. Some were familiar presences that walked by her side every day. Others were hints of paths not yet taken, brought forth from the farthest shadowed corners of her mind.

Resolute Sakura, arms crossed and feet planted solidly on the ground. Exam Queen Sakura, carrying a backpack bulging with amazing test results. Lover Sakura, with a wicked smile but gentleness in her eyes. Dutiful Daughter Sakura and Rebellious Preteen Sakura, holding hands with fingers intertwined. And as many more as there were facets to a human being.

All of them, in defiance of whatever laws of physics ruled the outside world, simultaneously put their hands on Sakura Prime’s shoulders. One by one, they faded from sight, but the feeling of their touch remained, like the weight of a mantle on her shoulders.

Sakura Prime took a step forward. Inner Sakura took a step back.

“You are me,” Sakura Prime said. “But I’m not you. I’m all of us. You’re not my shadow, and you’re not my true self.”

She made a gentle beckoning motion.

Inner Sakura’s lips twisted, though whether into a smile or a grimace it was impossible to tell. Then she melted away, rejoining the phantom host that comprised Haruno Sakura.

Almost as an afterthought, Sakura walked over to Ino and carefully but firmly pulled her up to her feet.

“I’m sorry, Ino, but I don’t think you qualify as my rival anymore. Turns out that my worst enemy is actually myself.”

Ino just stared at her wordlessly, eyes slightly glazed.

Sakura looked her in the eye for a few long seconds, then smiled.

“Why don’t we start over as friends? Maybe this time we can get it right.”

Before Ino could summon up the strength to reply, Sakura gave her a light push.

-o-

Back in what people who weren’t in the Yamanaka Clan considered the real world, Ino, without any sort of compulsion or coercion, put up her hand.

“I surrender.”

-o-

Lady Hinata and Neji faced each other, neither yet making a move.

“Lady Hinata,” Neji said as gently as he could, “don’t do this. You know you don’t have the temperament for a fighter, and deep down, I’m sure you don’t even want to be the clan leader. Step aside. Give up being a ninja. There are many careers out there which would suit you better. Perhaps you could be a scholar or a doctor. Hanabi can inherit the clan.”

It was plain as day that Lady Hinata was a ninja for one reason only, and that was because Lord Hiashi would accept nothing less of his first-born child. Her taijutsu was timid. Her chakra reserves were mediocre. Her chakra control was acceptable, but she lacked the ruthlessness needed to draw on the full devastating potential of the Gentle Fist. Above all, she was not a killer, and Neji would sacrifice whatever it took to make sure she remained pure.

His cousin was a girl who had never raised a hand in anger. A girl who possessed the Hyūga nobility of spirit that set her above lesser beings, yet never hesitated to show kindness even to lowly branch family members. A girl who must not be plunged into the filth and darkness of shinobi warfare by a mere accident of birth.

Not getting a response, Neji went on. “Unlike so many others, you have the freedom to choose your destiny. So choose. Don’t let yourself be trapped by the position you’ve been born into. Step aside from the shinobi world and let yourself find wherever it is you are meant to be, because I assure you it’s not here.”

She still wasn’t saying anything. He’d never have a chance to speak to her again in such perfect privacy, with an unquestionable reason to be near her, no other Hyūga within Byakugan radius, and no one else present except an apathetic judge who was not going to involve himself in the internal politics of a noble clan.

He slid up his forehead protector, revealing the pale green Caged Bird Seal. “This is the proof that the shinobi world is cursed, Lady Hinata. This is what it feels like to be _truly_ trapped by your destiny, knowing that at any time, someone from the main family can kill you for the slightest infraction, or for no infraction at all if they so much as fear that your Byakugan will fall into enemy hands. This is the world I cannot escape because I was born into the branch family. But _you_ can, and you know you do not belong here. Why would you want to stay here for even a second more?”

Lady Hinata wasn’t moving into a combat stance, but nor was she agreeing with his compelling argument. Neji knew why. It had to be that despicable parasite, the one who had latched onto his cousin to try to drag himself up from the filth where he belonged. He was the one sullying her innocence, abusing her trust and filling her head with ambitions that could only lead to her ruin. He was the last obstacle to overcome before she could be saved.

“It’s Uzumaki Naruto, isn’t it? He’s the one that has poisoned your mind. Listen to me, Lady Hinata. You may find him charming and trustworthy, but the only reason he supports your desire to remain a ninja is so he can exploit you. He wants you to become the head of the clan so that he can take advantage of—”

“Enough!” Lady Hinata said in a very un-Hinata-like voice. It wasn’t quite the Voice, but it was close enough to make Neji flinch. “I respect your opinion, and I know you’re only trying to help. But you mustn’t insult Naruto!”

There was nothing for it, then. Neji would have to be more direct.

He slipped into a perfect Gentle Fist stance. “If you will not listen to me, Lady Hinata, then I will prove to you with my own hands that you are not meant to be a ninja. I will show you what it truly means to do battle as a Hyūga shinobi, and why you can never be one.”

Lady Hinata took her own stance. “And I will show you that Naruto isn’t some kind of… of evil manipulator. I will show you how strong I’ve become through being with him.”

They closed, both activating their Byakugan.

To an outsider, the Gentle Fist Style looked incongruously like an attempt to slap your opponent, but in reality a Gentle Fist strike could be deadlier than any punch. Precise needles of chakra emitted from the palms could pierce any of the more than three hundred chakra points a Hyūga could see on the target’s body, blocking the channels along which chakra naturally flowed. A sufficient number of hits could do anything—disable a limb, shut down the lungs, stop the heart… a terrifying amount of power for an art that ignored armour and was dangerous even to block.

Lady Hinata attacked. She wasn’t angry—Neji knew that she was above anger—but in her eyes he could nevertheless see a rising frustration that he did not recognise. What had that lowlife done to her, that she should so much as attempt to get angry on his behalf? Neji was going to hunt that worm down and teach him the price of attempting to corrupt her… but first he had to cure her of the dangerously wrong belief that she could be a ninja.

A battle between two Gentle Fist users did not remotely resemble taking turns. Rather, it was a constant dance around each other, arms almost intertwining as each attack turned into a block, and each block was reversed into another attack. Lady Hinata and Neji’s limbs didn’t stay still for even half a second, constantly shifting stance, the fighters leaning back and sideways and occasionally forwards as their hands moved in endless elaborate patterns that seemed completely independent of the motion of the rest of their bodies.

Given that Uzumaki had somehow managed to cheat his way to this stage of the exam, Neji had been concerned that he might have attempted to dye Lady Hinata in his colours by teaching her some underhanded technique to use in this battle. But even if he had, fortunately her attempt at aggression had trapped her at close range, where there was no room for anything but taijutsu. With two fighters using the exact same style, and no opportunity for surprises, the better one would definitely win.

Yet victory wasn’t enough. Lady Hinata lacked talent as a fighter, but she was still of Hyūga blood, and she had clearly trained hard over the last several months. Neji was winning—that was as inevitable as the rise of the morning sun—but this wasn’t the display of overwhelming skill that would convince Lady Hinata of her inadequacy as a shinobi once and for all. She could not be permitted to even _think_ she could challenge him, or she would never free herself from the delusion that this was where she wanted to be.

The technique he needed wasn’t one he was supposed to know. He’d been able to reverse-engineer it after spying on main family training, combined with his own experimentation. But to be caught using it could well mean death. The Heavenly Spin was bad enough, but at least that was something that could be legitimately reinvented through talent and hard work (as indeed it had been). _This_ was a secret passed down from leader to heir, and its theft by a mere branch family member was as great a transgression as could be imagined.

Still, she was Lady Hinata. One of the first teachings of the shinobi was that some things were worth any sacrifice.

“You are within the range of my divination.”

He saw the shock in Lady Hinata’s eyes. Yes, she recognised the words. They were a death sentence, spoken by the main family to those they were about to destroy—or by one branch family member to someone he was about to set free.

He could see the pattern in his mind. The ancient circle of divination, its lines and curves a perfect image of the laws of chakra flow, a guide to motion that both followed and generated streams of chakra within the human body, resulting in movement that fed upon itself and grew ever faster, ever stronger with every step.

“Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Strikes.”

 

Hinata knew the technique was far beyond her power to defend against. Every strike pierced a new chakra point, every touch brought a new sensation of weakness, disorientation, growing numbness. She could not even keep up with the awareness of how many blows had rained on her in a matter of seconds, never mind think of blocking them.

Her breath came heavily to her. Neji would not strike to cripple or kill, but the perfect aim of his blows was such that she could no longer lift her arms, could barely stand without falling.

Yet stand she did.

“Why, Lady Hinata?” Neji demanded. “Why do you do more for his sake than you would for your own? Why does that… that morally bankrupt, honourless, gutless imbecile anchor you in a world where you do not belong?”

Hinata did not know anger. She wasn’t _allowed_ to know anger. She didn’t _dare_ to know anger. She didn’t even know if she _could_ know anger. But she could feel something stirring inside her when she heard Naruto spoken of like that. And beyond that, there was something else, something new.

She realised that she wanted, just this once, to have someone accept that her decisions were her own.

It was good that Naruto wasn’t here. He hated incomplete techniques. And Hinata would have been mortally embarrassed to have him see what happened next, whether it worked or not.

The one thing people knew about the Hyūga’s unique abilities was that they had the Byakugan. The other, less publicised fact was that they could project chakra from any chakra point on their body, not just the ones on the hands and feet used by other shinobi. It was the foundation of Neji’s Heavenly Spin (which she’d Seen, with amazement, in the Forest of Death), though that was the only technique Hinata knew of that made use of this ability.

Hinata had found it another application.

 

As Neji struck out with his coup de grace, Lady Hinata’s body suddenly wasn’t there. Before he could reorient himself, he felt an inexplicable numbing sensation around his left elbow.

Lady Hinata had somehow moved to his left. He turned as his forearm drooped downwards. He could see her, still breathing heavily, still barely on her feet, and she wasn’t in anything that could even charitably be called a stance. But she was smiling a smile that he had never seen before.

“What…?”

She could not be allowed to fight back. She could not be allowed to gain confidence as a warrior, or she would fall straight into the palm of Uzumaki’s hand.

Neji lashed out again, targeting a critical point in her chest. But somehow her entire torso swayed sideways with inhuman speed, then returned while he was still pulling back from the blow.

Another hit, this time to his shoulder. The movement was much faster than anything she should have been capable of, the withdrawal coming before he had a chance to strike the attacking arm. And Hinata was once again standing there with her arms down, body upright through sheer force of will, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

He could _See_ her channels. They had not miraculously become unblocked. Her muscles shouldn’t have been able to move _at all_.

“You’re wrong… about one thing… cousin. When something’s incomplete… you don’t give up on it… You figure out… what it needs… to make it work.”

No. Not this. Yes, effort was important. Even the full radiance of the Hyūga could not manifest without intense training. But that was not the same as pouring all your energies into a doomed attempt to become something you were never meant to be. That was Uzumaki’s way. That was what he was doing himself, and what he wanted to force Lady Hinata to do for his sake—and no matter what it took, _Neji would not let Uzumaki have her._

Biting his lip, Neji withdrew for a second, then attacked with everything he had.

But Lady Hinata’s body moved in a way human bodies _just did not move_ , twisting and bending and leaning out of the way so fast he could barely keep track. It was like some greater power was in control of her, ignoring her physical limitations because it was not relying on the capabilities of her body. There were flickers of chakra around her, but he was too busy defending against her impossible motions to be able to figure out what that meant.

Then Lady Hinata’s hands lashed out. Neji moved to block, but they snapped back faster than he could see, and then came out again, striking several times against his blocking arms. It was the classic move that raised the Hyūga above all other taijutsu users, for now his hands could only hang useless at his sides, leaving him unable to attack. Lady Hinata should have been the same after his assault, and it was beyond his power to comprehend why she wasn’t.

How was she still standing? He could see her swaying slightly as if she was having trouble keeping her balance, for all the world the way a victim of the Eight Trigrams _should_ look. Except that she was still smiling.

“I can’t say it’s ‘Hyūga-style taijutsu’… because there’s already one of those… and ‘Hinata-style taijutsu’ doesn’t sound right… and anyway it’s only a prototype for now… And it wasn’t meant to be used… _instead_ of normal fighting.”

That smile, that unfamiliar smile, was back on her face.

“But one thing I did think was that maybe... even someone like me could learn to be a predator.”

For just a few seconds, Lady Hinata was back in a Gentle Fist stance. There really was, Neji realised, something marionette-like about her movement. Only she wasn’t being pulled by a puppeteer’s strings from above, but pushed from below. He began to notice the glow of projected chakra, not instant this time but constant and steady, around parts of her body. Then, too late, he understood.

“I call it… Sidewinder Style.”

-o-

Hinata struck out, flashes of chakra bursting from the back of the entire right half of her body like jets of flame, pushing a leg into place, swinging a hip forward, keeping a shoulder aligned, supporting a forearm to keep it level and raising a hand to face Neji’s chest, all in one almost-instant motion. The blow knocked him down to the ground.

Hinata had spent a very long time dwelling on the humiliating failure of her first original technique. But somewhere along the line, dwelling had turned into thinking, and thinking had turned into insight. The technique _had_ accomplished its original design goal—to use chakra emission from the palms to snap her arms back with more speed and force than her muscles were capable of on their own. But all that force had to go somewhere, and in the event it was absorbed by her elbow joints, which evolution had not equipped them to do.

Eventually the solution came to her. As a Hyūga, she wasn’t limited to the chakra points in her palms, not limited in where and how she applied the power of instant chakra emission. All she had to do was apply it to more of her body at once, mimicking its natural motions and distributing the strain the way it was meant to be distributed—but with all the speed and precision of her clan’s flawless chakra-directing ability. And with her technique no longer limited to one particular arm movement, it would gain extraordinary applications for dodging, allowing her to push her body out of the way of any attack she could mentally react to.

Or that was the theory. Right now, the motions were unoptimised, the chakra control was erratic at best, the mental and physical strain was still too high, the whole thing was an unbearable embarrassment to the Hyūga Clan in its level of execution, and until the very last second she hadn’t been sure if it would even work at all.

Still in the forward stance she’d ended up in, unable to directly control her legs enough to reposition, Hinata looked down at Neji’s dazed form.

“When I’m head of the clan… I’m going to do something about… the Caged Bird Seal. Until then… you’re going to help me… and be nice to Naruto… and respect other people’s… choices…”

The room was spinning around her. She’d never planned to give the chakra-intensive Sidewinder Style its first real test run when half her channels were blocked.

There’d been something else she’d meant to say, about projecting one’s problems onto other people, but for now… she’d... just…


	24. Chapter 24

The device whirred back to life. Everyone watched the ominous orange screen, knowing that they could be next, and that they might be the one to draw…

“Gaara of the Desert…”

All but one person desperately hoped that if they were named, it would be as his partner.

“and Uchiha Sasuke…”

That one person punched the wall in frustration.

“versus…

“Tsuchidō Sera…”

Three people went pale. The rest let out sighs of relief.

“and Dosu Kinuta.”

Sasuke brightened up considerably.

-o-

“Are we still in Exam Stage Two?”

Silence.

“I guess we must be. Oh, well. So that Bloodline Limit of yours, does it really let you see chakra and copy techniques like Kakashi the Copy Ninja?”

Silence.

“That must be amazing. I’ve always wanted to see chakra with my own eyes. What does it look like?”

Silence.

“So what’s it like living in Leaf? I’ve lived all my life in a desert, so being surrounded by trees all the time makes me feel a little claustrophobic.”

Silence.

“Have you ever been to a desert?”

Silence.

“I bet your chakra tastes very interesting.”

A disturbed look.

Silence.

-o-

“So, Tsuchidō, was it?” Dosu studied the girl in front of him with a little apprehension. Experience told him that the small, cute ones were generally the deadliest. “Want to play rock-paper-scissors to decide who has to fight the red-haired kid?”

“No way. You Sound ninja always cheat.”

“Huh. How’d you know that?”

“I didn’t until just now.”

Dosu blinked a couple of times. He liked this one. He hoped he wouldn’t have to sacrifice her to get what he needed out of this match.

“Let’s talk for real now,” he said. “With that gourd, the redhead’s obviously a ninjutsu specialist, and I can tell you all about the Uchiha. If we want to win, the key will be…”

-o-

Sasuke tuned out Gaara’s blathering and watched his opponents’ lips, paying attention to every last bit of their discussion and preparing counter-plans. It would be a tricky battle, especially since Gaara was an unknown quantity to both sides, but he couldn’t do what he was doing and talk to Gaara at the same time, and in any case the little poser seemed like he would be useless as a planning partner.

Tempting though it was to focus on taking out Dosu and leave Gaara to his fate against the Hidden Grass girl (or maybe even help him on his way), the fact remained that if Sasuke were ever to have a chance of fighting Gaara himself, he’d need to suck it up and help him get through this fight and to the Finals. It was obvious from looking at Gaara that the rumours about him were absurd exaggerations—the feeble-looking, immature loser had probably been carried through the exam by his more impressive teammates. Whereas if Rock Lee’s inane ramblings were to be believed, until she was outnumbered, Tsuchidō Sera had held her own against Hyūga Neji, whose reputation as a powerful dōjutsu user made him sound nearly as strong as Sasuke himself.

Besides, there was the honour of the Uchiha to consider. What would Ita—what would his father have said if he’d heard that Sasuke had betrayed an alliance, even an alliance of convenience, purely because of his personal feelings? The Uchiha were keepers of a tradition of cool-blooded, clear-headed rationality as old as the shinobi world itself, of passion firmly and unyieldingly guided by eyes that perceived and comprehended all before them. Sasuke’s vengeance against Itachi was firmly within the bounds of that tradition—defeating him was the only way to find out the truth about that night, and to eliminate a major threat to Leaf and the wider world. Those were his reasons, with emotion being a strictly secondary motivation. The same could not be said for his desire to take Gaara down a peg or two, no matter how much the little poser might objectively deserve it.

The barriers went down.

Sasuke’s heart stopped. His hands were in the Dispelling Technique position before he knew it, but the scene before his eyes did not change.

The Sharingan never lied. The Sharingan could not lie. It was beyond deception, beyond illusion, even (with sufficient training) beyond genjutsu. That unchangeable truth was one of the foundations of the Uchiha Clan. And if what Sasuke was seeing was real…

They’d all been right to be afraid of Gaara.

On the other side of the arena, collars of sand coalesced around Tsuchidō and Dosu’s throats, and began to constrict, slowly, inexorably, with a careful precision that did not leave the tiniest gap for the ninja’s desperately clawing fingers.

“Well,” the monster addressed Sasuke, “which one would you like to fight?”

Sasuke did not look at it. He did not want to see what the Sharingan might show him.

With a very controlled hand movement, he pointed to Dosu.

“That one.”

The monster turned its attention from him and to Tsuchidō.

“Please surrender. I’m not allowed to kill you right now, so I’ll have to do other things if you don’t.”

Her collar loosened slightly.

“I surrender!” she shouted hoarsely. “I surrender! I surrender! I surrender!”

-o-

Fate was smiling on Dosu for the second time in his life. Not only was he alive and in good shape, but he was being given another shot at Uchiha Sasuke.

Despite his failure, he would get another chance to gauge the target’s abilities. He had been dreading telling the Master that in his one fight with the Uchiha, the brat had spent most of it helplessly lying on the ground, only to then take Dosu and Zaku out in seconds thanks to their own mistake. The Master had perfect control of his emotions, so he wouldn’t yell or kick Dosu or throw things at him, but his look of gentle disappointment pierced straight to the heart, and then who knew how long it would be until the Master trusted Dosu with another important mission?

Also, Dosu outright hated the Uchiha. It was bad enough that the brat had been born into a ninja clan, with wealth and power and a Bloodline Limit and a silver spoon in his mouth the size of a spade. Dosu could have chalked that up to the general injustice of life and moved on. But then _he_ , who already had everything, had attracted the Master’s attention as well. Dosu and Kin were survivors who’d fought and begged and stolen and sold things that should not be sold, all to live long enough for that moment of grace when the Master noticed them and offered his hand of salvation. And then the Uchiha had strolled in and claimed the same grace as if it was owed to him.

But it wasn’t too late. An overwhelming defeat here might be enough to prove once and for all that the Uchiha was an unworthy weakling and a waste of the Master’s time (which could then be lavished on his worthy servants). Besides, while he could not kill or maim the Uchiha, or do anything else that might reduce his value to the Master, there were no such limitations on _pain_ , and the powers bestowed on Dosu had some fantastic applications in that area.

For a few seconds, they merely stared at each other. Dosu inwardly savoured the anticipation, while doing his best to pretend that Gaara’s technique had left him shaken and defenceless (as if that had been Dosu’s first time being nearly choked to death). The Uchiha, meanwhile, seemed like he was trying to suppress his fear of Dosu and gather the resolve to attack, clearly knowing that his previous victory had been nothing but a fluke.

Finally, the Uchiha charged, his eyes glowing red. Just before he got in range, Dosu swung his arm up.

The blow went wide, and the Uchiha gave him a self-satisfied smirk. Then the wave of sound from the bracer hit him. He stumbled back, his sense of balance disturbed, and fell to the floor.

Dosu moved in to take advantage.

The brat quickly grabbed and threw some shuriken. Though they all went hopelessly wide, they kept Dosu out of melee range just long enough for him to stumble to his feet, leap back, and make a few seals in mid-air.

“Fire Element: Great Fireball Technique!”

Of course, with his inner ear disturbed, the Uchiha couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, and Dosu gleefully twisted the knife deeper by dodging almost in slow motion.

“I’ve been waiting for this!” Dosu roared.

“You mean to get your ass kicked?” The Uchiha sneered.  ”I’ll be happy to oblige!”

Once again, he closed the rest of the distance between them, and tried to grapple Dosu in order to deny him the free movement of his arms.

He wasn’t fast enough. Dosu swung at him with both arms, and the combined sound wave made the brat stagger and fall backwards even more violently than before.

As his target lay curled on the ground, Dosu pulled back one arm for a brutal finishing punch.

Slam!

Instead of, as he’d eagerly anticipated, the Uchiha’s face, Dosu’s fist met the hard stone floor. The Uchiha had managed to roll to the side at the last second with unexpected agility. And wait, Dosu wondered in that same instant, why were his hands together in a—

The explosive tag on the floor went off.

Dosu’s bracer was blasted to smithereens, and as he stumbled back, he could only thank his lucky stars that it hadn’t been his hand. Still, that pair of bracers had been a gift from the Master, worn by Dosu alone out of all the Master’s servants, and though the Master always said that a tool was worth no more than the use it could be put to, to Dosu its destruction was an act of sacrilege.

“You little son of a bitch,” Dosu snarled. “I’m going to rip _your_ arms off and beat you to death with them!”

“It’s a good start,” the Uchiha smirked. “But I’ll need a bigger handicap before a loser like you has a chance against me.

“So, you still brave enough to face me without your Death Knells?”

Dosu reluctantly reached into a pocket, turning at an angle to conceal the motion. Flashbang grenades were neither cheap nor common, which was why ordinary ninja were usually stuck using smoke bombs. And while Hidden Sound undeniably had the best technology, the Master was subtle in his punishments when he felt a servant had wasted valuable mission gear. Dosu, only recently literate, could already see the stacks of paperwork in his mind’s eye. The bracer was bad enough already; he would have to make this one count.

Dosu ran at the Uchiha, the grenade concealed in his hand.

The brat reacted quickly, drawing and throwing a collapsible Fūma shuriken in one swift motion.

Fortunately, Dosu’s intensive training had covered many such tricks. Rather than ducking under the shuriken, Dosu dodged to the left—thereby avoiding the second shuriken of the Shadow Windmill. Both shuriken buried themselves deep in the wall behind him.

Deciding he was close enough, Dosu threw the flashbang into the air without breaking stride. He had time to see the Uchiha throwing another Fūma shuriken, attempting the same pointless trick a second time. This time, there was more space to dodge right.

The thunk of the two shuriken embedding themselves in the wall came a fraction of a second before the flashbang went off.

Immune to deafness through the Master’s extraordinary modifications, and able to navigate by sound alone, Dosu would have no trouble finding and taking down the stunned brat and teaching him the full meaning of—

Two lines of ninja wire caught him across the chest, making his own momentum throw him down. Before he could get up, a completely un-stunned Uchiha walked up to him and held a kunai to his throat.

“I—I surrender!”

The Uchiha smirked and took out his earplugs.

“What?! But I—”

“I let you hit me the first time for real to make you think I was vulnerable.”

“But when—”

“While the Great Fireball Technique was obstructing your vision.”

“But you—”

“Any Uchiha worth his salt can read lips. And I practised keeping my voice at the right volume with Naruto.”

“But the—”

“Ninja wire tied between the two sets of Fūma shuriken. I got it ready while you were reeling at me blowing up your arm.”

“But—”

“Oh, come _on_. I just covered my eyes when I saw the bomb coming with the Sharingan.”

Dosu decided to keep his mouth shut.

-o-

Meanwhile, Naruto was still beating himself up over the Kabuto thing. He wasn’t _completely_ stupid, so after Kabuto was done debriefing him and had got him to call in Sasuke, Naruto had gone straight to the examiners to check Kabuto’s cover story. Yes, Anko had told him, “dear little Kabuto” _was_ an infiltration specialist jōnin; yes, he _was_ here on an official mission; and yes, any further questions _would_ take Naruto above his clearance and result in some special Anko-brand discipline, however _had_ he guessed, and hey, where was he going?

So now he’d made an idiot out of himself in front of a jōnin who’d been assigned to watch him throughout the exam, making it clear that he was neither quick-thinking nor perceptive nor possessed of the capacity for rational analysis. And what was Naruto doing right now? Oh, yes, being evaluated for promotion.

Given his state of mind, it was with some relief that Naruto spotted a distraction in the form of a tired but satisfied-looking Sakura.

“Congratulations on making it to the Finals!” he exclaimed with what he hoped came across as more enthusiasm than disbelief.

But Sakura gave him a cold look.

Oh, that.

There really was nothing for it, Naruto realised. He’d been thinking about this earlier, during the majority of Stage Two, which was to say long periods of uncomfortable silence punctuated by bursts of excitement. Sakura was wrong—there was no doubt about that—but on reflection, maybe he could have handled things in a way that didn’t hurt her feelings? Treating someone badly just because they happened to be wrong had an unpleasant feel of Hyūga Hiashi about it.

Besides, in a way he’d been wrong as well. Not in his assessment of the situation and the right way to proceed, which had been rock-solid, but in the fact that he hadn’t even thought about communicating with her. If he’d only been better at talking to people instead of making assumptions, then maybe the whole thing with Sasuke might never have happened…

Naruto took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

“I’m sorry I underestimated you earlier.”

“You should be,” Sakura told him with an unsympathetic hardness in her voice.

“Actually, I’m just sorry in general,” Naruto said. It wasn’t easy. Naruto had always hated apologising, not so much to the general population (that was merely part of the pranking process, at least if he got caught), but certainly to the few people whose opinion mattered. It felt like every apology diminished the person he was to them, and made them see him more like everyone else did, which is to say as someone who should be sorry just for existing.

“I know how important it is for teammates to talk to each other,” he went on, “and I should have talked to you before making a decision.”

“Wow,” Sakura’s tone softened. “That almost sounds like you get what you did wrong, _and_ may try to do better next time. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but there might be hope for you yet.”

“Anyway, congratulations,” Naruto decided to change the subject.

Sakura gave what a sight-impaired, terminally naïve person _might_ conceivably have interpreted as a modest shrug. “I told you I rocked tests.”

“So how’d you do it?”

“Oh, I fought my dark side in a literal battle inside my own mind, and then saved Ino by discovering the power of my true self. She couldn’t _not_ let me win after that,” Sakura replied nonchalantly.

Naruto grinned at this. “Not bad for a beginner, but couldn’t you make it a _little_ more plausible?”

“Like it or not, it’s the truth, Naruto,” Sakura boasted in a smug voice that Naruto vaguely recognised as an exaggeration of his own, shortly before Ino’s wrathful fist descended right on top of her head.

“Ow! What was that for?!”

“For making up stupid lies,” Ino stated with just that little bit too much emphasis. “Now come on, the cafeteria’s going to close if we’re late.”

-o-

As soon as Naruto heard that Hinata was in Itama Tower’s field hospital, he ran like the wind, causing loose objects to be displaced in his wake, and sensible people to take shelter until he’d passed. He didn’t even care that he was missing the results for the latest battle—Hidden Grass ninja Kagami and Kabuto’s teammate Tsurugi against Rock Lee and Hidden Sand’s Kankurō. (He later learned that it had been a foregone conclusion—Tsurugi had some kind of anti-taijutsu ability that completely shut down Lee, while Kankurō obliterated Kagami with puppet-based artillery that there wasn’t enough room to dodge).

“Hinata! Are you OK?”

Hinata, lying in a hospital bed, gave him a smile. “Thank you for coming, Naruto. But I’m fine, just tired and a bit paralysed. It’ll wear off eventually. If it was anything _really_ serious, they’d have taken me to the General Hospital.”

“What happened? Was it Neji’s bad breath? Were you overwhelmed by his total lack of social skills? Or did his aura of stupidity melt your brain?”

“Um, Naruto, he’s right there across the room.”

“I know.”

Neji was equally bedridden, but taking it with none of Hinata’s relaxed grace. The look on his face was one of mixed contempt and self-pity, as if he had not only discovered that there was a fly in his soup, but also that he was in Ishikawa’s Fly-in-Soup Speciality Restaurant, and there were no other sources of food within a hundred miles.

“Uzumaki, would you come over here for a moment?”

Naruto reluctantly obliged.

“It has come to my attention,” Neji quietly admitted with the expression of someone chewing something extremely unpleasant (possibly a fly), “that you may not be the despicable, treacherous, filthy worm that I initially believed you to be. I am thus offering you a ceasefire until you either reveal your true colours or convince me of your worthiness to be by Lady Hinata’s side.”

“Sure, whatever,” Naruto said. “Shake on it?”

He offered his hand.

“Uzumaki, you do realise I can’t lift my arms right now?”

“I know.”

-o-

The various genin, including Hinata (being supported by Naruto, to her delight) and Neji (being supported by a chattering Rock Lee, to his distress), watched the display screen like hawks. There weren’t many combinations left, and whatever came up would give them a good chance of guessing the rest.

“Yoroi Akado…

“and Akimichi Chōji…

“versus…

“Aburame Shino…

“and Fūma Ginpachi.”

“Aw, hell yeah. Chōji, you can finally witness the true power of _the_ Ginpachi!”

Shino had a bad feeling about this.

-o-

“So, Yoroi,” Chōji said. “What can you do?”

“I’m Kabuto-sensei’s greatest taijutsu fighter,” Yoroi said with a quiet pride that implied a lot of faith in his team leader. Chōji wondered exactly what the relationship between those two was. After all, Kabuto was Yoroi’s teammate, not his instructor.

Yoroi hesitated, giving Chōji a measuring look.

“I can also absorb chakra on contact.”

Chōji stared. He’d never heard of an ability like that. If it was as strong as it sounded…

“Yeah,” Yoroi went on, that pride in his voice growing slightly. “As soon as I get within melee range, the fight’s over.

“How about you?”

“I’m an Akimichi,” Chōji said simply. “Our speciality is using chakra to transform our bodies. Bigger, stronger, tougher, that sort of thing.”

“Huh. Right, so Kabuto-sensei told me all about these guys, and I’ve got a few ideas on how to take them down.”

“Me too. Shikamaru was really helpful. So listen to this, and let me know what you think…”

-o-

“You’re in luck, Aburame. You get to fight alongside _the_ Ginpachi.”

“Err, as you say. So about our strategy—”

“Don’t worry, got you covered. I’m not sure about that Yoroi guy, but Ametatsu and I researched the hell out of Chōji after our last battle ended in a draw.”

“I was going to suggest that—”

“Oh, one thing. We fight as a team, but in the end, Chōji’s mine. We good on that?”

“I don’t think that will be a problem, but we will need to coordinate our actions carefully. Why? Because—”

“So here’s what I came up with, with a little help from Ametatsu…”

-o-

Team Earth, Wind and Fire wasn’t Hidden Grass’s Ino-Shika-Chō. Not yet. The Fūma Clan was out of favour for stupid political reasons, Ametatsu’s dad was an asshole who couldn’t see what was right in front of his nose, and it didn’t take a genius to guess why Sera wouldn’t talk about her circumstances. It had come as no surprise to anybody when some waste of air up in the Emerald Circle decided to match the shuriken specialist with users of utility and battlefield control ninjutsu respectively, deliberately dooming them to a lifetime of obscurity as a specialised support squad.

But they hadn’t reckoned on _the_ Ginpachi.

Sure, your typical shurikenjutsu user was a support type, providing covering fire and driving enemies into position, gradually wearing down their defences in order to create an opening for the team’s hard-hitters. But _the_ Ginpachi was born to be the star of the show. Let lesser ranged fighters spend their battles backpedalling away from enemy attacks until their tougher teammates came in to bail them out. _The_ Ginpachi faced his foes head-on… and won with style.

Akimichi Chōji was the kind of man who dared to push his stomach to its limit in order to gain true bodily strength. _The_ Ginpachi knew that he’d try to close the distance without a moment’s hesitation.

“Human Bullet Tank!”

Chōji rapidly inflated to twice his size and curled up into a ball, which started vertically rotating very fast as if spun by invisible hands. The “tank” rolled at _the_ Ginpachi with extraordinary speed.

Of course, _the_ Ginpachi knew the calibre of his opponent. He’d been saving a really rare technique just for this.

“Wind Element: Slicing Wedge Technique!”

                                            

The horizontal cutting edge of wind did nothing to harm Chōji. In fact, the way it slid under his spinning form only accelerated him further. But Ametatsu, who had originally thought up the idea, loved turning weaknesses into strengths… and strengths into weaknesses.

The technique really was wedge-shaped, and that meant a ramp in mid-air that launched Chōji way above his original target. He crashed violently into the wall, sending shards of rubble flying everywhere. The impact broke his concentration and he reverted back to his human form, which hit the ground hard.

_The_ Ginpachi never missed an opening. As soon as he confirmed that Chōji had fallen for his trap, he ran straight to the other side of the arena, restoring the distance he needed for his next move.

“Fūma-style Shurikenjutsu: Blade Rondo!”

A storm of Fūma shuriken flew towards Chōji, too heavy to block, and too widely spread to evade. Once again, _the_ Ginpachi’s powers were about to end a battle before it had even begun.

It occurred to him to wonder where Chōji’s teammate was, right as the piece of rubble behind him transformed back into Yoroi, grabbed him and began to drain his chakra.

-o-

In targeting Ginpachi, Chōji had been manoeuvred into a corner, and the incoming shuriken left him with only one direction to flee. But as he turned around…

“Venom Tide!”

Chōji had always paid attention to his fellow genin, and as such he was well aware that Shino had no need to call his attacks. After all, the whole tradition was at its core a way to enhance focus (and thus strengthen chakra flow). The Aburame, who saw themselves as organisers rather than initiators of their particular brand of ninjutsu, had no need of such things, and nor did their “partners”. Knowing Shino, he probably just wanted to try out something that everyone else seemed to have such fun doing.

But this knowledge did not help Chōji, who was now trapped between two walls of stone, one approaching wall of shuriken, and one approaching wall of what were almost certainly venomous insects.

Then again, running from danger had never been the Akimichi way. He took a wide stance, his centre of mass close to the ground.

“Partial Double Size Technique!”

Chōji’s arms swelled to many times their natural size.

(Fortunately, the Akimichi were not exhibitionists, and the special fabric that his costume was made of stretched to accommodate the transformation. This was true even of his bracers, as they were only painted to look like steel, and were in fact made of very thick leather made with secret Akimichi tanning arts.)

One arm rose up to block the Fūma shuriken with a bracer in a single sweeping movement. The edges still got through, painfully, but most of the impact was safely absorbed.

Chōji’s other arm struck the insects with a devastating backhand, crushing most of them against the wall. Of course, a few still managed to sting him, but his technique temporarily expanded and strengthened everything he needed to function at his new size—his bones, his muscles, his bloodstream, his blood cell count… On that scale, the dose wouldn’t be enough to make him blink.

The true power of the Akimichi techniques was nothing to do with increased durability, strength or reach. It was the fact that they were able to make the square-cube law their plaything.

-o-

Meanwhile, _the_ Ginpachi was drained nearly dry. Fortunately, Yoroi’s movements had slowed down a lot once he started using his overpowered ability—converting somebody else’s chakra into your own was probably a massive strain on your chakra system. And _the_ Ginpachi, with his painstakingly cultivated bulk, was able to exploit this and twist around just enough to form a couple of seals.

“Wind Element: Nova Thrust!”

It was a terrible technique, the kind you only taught a genin if you never expected him to amount to anything in the first place. It had barely two metres’ range, its characteristic moment of silence completely telegraphed it, and its pushing power wasn’t even enough to knock someone down.

But with insight born of a hundred unsuccessful strategy games with Ametatsu, _the_ Ginpachi could turn any weakness into a strength. Precisely because it was a technique you’d only teach to a beginner, the Nova Thrust had a minimal chakra cost and only two hand seals needed to use it. It was as if it had been specially created for this very moment.

Yoroi staggered back as the pulse of repelling force disrupted his balance. _The_ Ginpachi never missed an opening, and he immediately thrust a kunai at Yoroi’s unprotected chest.

But Chōji, the very definition of a hard-hitter who bailed out his more fragile comrades, was just close enough to dive in to save him. Grabbing Yoroi with a giant hand, he quickly spun around…

…and threw him straight at Shino.

-o-

Shino’s eyes widened as Chōji’s human missile flew at him too fast to dodge. Then, as Yoroi hit him, Shino dissolved into a swarm of bugs.

“It is a curious fact,” the real Shino observed from a safe distance, “that people unconsciously flinch away when they look at an almost-human figure whose uncanny valley is filled with insects. It makes for very convincing clones.”

Then the bugs reassembled around Yoroi and began to drain his chakra in a clear case of poetic justice.

Chōji dispelled the Partial Double-Size Technique in order to reach into a pocket and pull out a soldier pill. The universal antivenom slowed the effect of many natural poisons, including those that inflicted paralysis, nausea and disorientation. It didn’t last long, or he’d have taken it at the very beginning, but with Ginpachi visibly lacking the chakra to use the Wind Element again, and Shino the only real threat left, it would last long enough to end the battle.

He charged at his defenceless opponent.

-o-

Yoroi, meanwhile, seemed less inconvenienced by the chakra-draining bugs than Shino had expected.

“Nice try. Except I can absorb chakra right back—with my entire body.”

Slowly, ponderously, he began to walk towards Shino. With every step, more bugs fell to the floor.

But a real star didn’t leave the stage in mid-show just because he was out of chakra.

“Absorb _this_!” _the_ Ginpachi roared.

“Fūma-style Shurikenjutsu: Bountiful Rain!”

A stream of kunai soared towards Yoroi in an elegant arc, high enough over the battlefield that Chōji couldn’t have intercepted them even if he’d been fast enough to use his technique. Was Yoroi going to turn off his ability in order to dodge, and get drained to a husk by the insects, or would he rather stay in place and be skewered?

Yoroi took a third option.

Still filled with _the_ Ginpachi’s superior chakra on top of his own, he sent it all to his feet in a super-enhanced jump, twisting in mid-air to end up standing on the ceiling. _The_ Ginpachi didn’t have time to re-orient himself and launch a new technique before Yoroi closed in on him. With another powerful leap, touching off the ceiling and combining chakra acceleration with the force of gravity, he slammed into _the_ Ginpachi at incredible speed. Everything went dark.

-o-

While the merits of the Aburame techniques were many and varied, Shino was forced to concede that they had one significant weakness—even the biggest swarm of insects was ineffective at obstructing kinetic force. Chōji, whose combat style revolved around applying unnerving amounts of kinetic force to his opponents’ anatomy, would definitely be aware of this.

“Human Bullet Tank!”

Shino hurriedly raised his arms as he signalled to his more specialised partners. If he’d guessed the contents of the Akimichi antivenom incorrectly, he was about to find himself spread finely across a broad two-dimensional area.

“Malign Growth!”

(Creating original and evocative technique names was more difficult than Shino had anticipated. Next time, he would have to prepare a list in advance.)

A cloud of insects briefly enveloped Chōji, a few of them successfully delivering their payload before they were cast off by his angular momentum.

Suddenly, Chōji swerved to the side as his perfect spherical shape distorted. The Human Bullet Tank technique dispelled itself as Chōji’s body deformed, bulging protrusions all over his limbs and torso rendering movement increasingly difficult. Better still, any rapid growth technique would only aggravate his condition.

“I surrender!”

The other two genin, still on their way out, regarded Shino with an unreasonable but sadly familiar reverent horror, and even the judge shuddered as he watched Shino administer the cure.


	25. Chapter 25

Sasuke was satisfied with the latest results. Zaku winning his fight meant that Sasuke might face him again in the Finals, and the fact that he’d done so by removing one of that monster’s teammates from the final line-up was icing on the cake. Not that Sasuke hadn’t seen it coming. He already knew that Zaku and Temari used the same Wind Element, their only difference being the _way_ they used it. This made the outcome simple to predict. In a battle of power versus flexibility, flexibility won every time, and there were only so many techniques the broad sweeps of a war fan could facilitate.

Zaku had also been laughing his head off at his partner Kiba’s performance against Kabuto. Apparently Kabuto had led Kiba around the arena like a Carnation Country matador, constantly evading without revealing a single one of his techniques, and finally tricked the frustrated genin into using a super-high-speed taijutsu attack to crash headfirst into a wall. It would have been a lot more impressive if Sasuke hadn’t been aware of the true gap in strength between the two.

But the final battle was the only one Sasuke had any interest in. It was obvious by process of elimination that it would feature Naruto, Shikamaru, Tenten and Kin in some combination. And while it would be absurd to suggest that Sasuke was cheering for his rival, fighting him in the Finals would be even better than getting his revenge on Zaku or Kin, and infinitely preferable to having to find a way to defeat _that thing_.

For now, though, he had a different problem on his mind. Kabuto had asked him some very pointed questions, almost as if he suspected that Sasuke was hiding something, and Sasuke still didn’t know whether his acting had fooled the jōnin. Nor was he sure that he’d done the right thing. When he thought about it…

Unsanctioned encounter with a foreign ninja? Check.

Missing-nin? Check.

S-rank criminal? Check.

Capable of penetrating Leaf’s defensive barrier without raising the alarm? Check.

Knows information that might make a difference to Leaf’s survival? Check.

Is almost certainly evil, despite his assurances? Check.

Has plans, probably sinister ones, for one or more Leaf ninja? Check.

Implicitly has spies in Leaf? Check.

Only a madman would hesitate to tell the authorities in the face of that list. Except…

Orochimaru was _prepared_. It was impossible for him not to acknowledge the possibility that Sasuke might report him. If anything, he’d probably planned around it, thinking of ways to take advantage of the fact that Leaf knew (or thought they knew) certain facts about him and his actions. He may even have deliberately fed Sasuke information with that in mind, leaving the truth for after Sasuke was committed to his cause. If that were true, it would be frankly irresponsible for Sasuke to report him.

On the other hand, if Orochimaru could predict that Sasuke would report him, could he not also predict that Sasuke was insightful enough to be aware of all this? He might have deliberately presented himself a certain way in order to _make_ Sasuke want to report him but decide against it. With his apparent ability to read Sasuke’s mind, he might exceed even the mind game prowess of the Uchiha.

There was an argument for telling the authorities and letting _them_ decide how many layers of deception Orochimaru was using. But that would take the decision about joining him out of Sasuke’s hands. There was no possible way they’d allow him to go if they were aware of the possibility. Sasuke still wasn’t sure what he wanted—but he knew that if he gave away control of his destiny, he would regret it for the rest of his life.

And there _were_ other considerations. Sasuke could easily believe Orochimaru’s claims that reporting would have negative consequences for him, Sasuke, personally. Ever since Madara, Leaf policy had tended towards paranoia where its missing-nin were concerned, and Sasuke was the brother of one of the worst. He was already the cursed Uchiha who carried the mark of a terrible disaster, and whom Itachi had suspiciously left untouched. The brother of one of the Leaf missing-nin to join Akatsuki did not need to be known for consorting with the other.

Besides, he reasoned, if he made the decision not to join Orochimaru, he could always report the conversation to them then. Whatever the fallout for not doing so straight away, it could not be worse than having control over his future being taken out of his hands. And conversely, if he decided to accept Orochimaru’s offer, it would no longer matter when and how it had been made.

So Sasuke would put off the decision until he had a chance to think about it some more. It was the only rational thing to do.

Sasuke looked up at the announcement screen.

“Nara Shikamaru…

“and Tenten…

“versus…

“Uzumaki Naruto...

“and Tsuchi Kin.”

_Don’t disappoint me, Naruto..._

-o-

Naruto and Kin stared at each other uncomfortably.

“Right,” Naruto said, “I don’t have much time, so could you just tell me what you can do? I know you’re a taijutsu user and you can use genjutsu with the bells on your throwing needles. Anything else?”

Kin sneered. “It was enough to take out you and your little playmates, wasn’t it?”

Naruto didn’t dignify that with an answer, partly because he didn’t want to admit she was right. He was _really_ starting to hate genjutsu.

“Is there anything else you can do?” he repeated. “I can’t come up with a plan if I don’t know all our options.”

Kin was silent for a few seconds, looking away.

“No,” she said quietly. “No, that’s it.”

“Seriously?” Naruto couldn’t help the note of incredulity slipping into his voice. When he thought about the variety Zaku had shown with his ninjutsu arsenal…

Kin whipped around. “Some of us didn’t get to grow up in a fancy ninja village with friendly jōnin falling over themselves to hand us an ‘education’ on a plate. Dosu and I joined Sound on merit, after surviving a hell where a spoiled brat like you wouldn’t last an hour. We completely crushed you with maybe a fifth of your training—so you can take your condescension and shove it right up your ass.

“Now, you got a plan or what?”

-o-

Shikamaru considered Tenten, who was playing with the clip on her shuriken holster but otherwise seemed to be paying attention.

“Are you OK with following my suggestions during this fight?”

“As long as they’re not stupid.”

“And are you OK with me taking control of your body with Shadow Imitation in an emergency?”

“As long as you don’t do anything weird.”

Shikamaru nodded.

“Now, I know you have an exceptionally good memory, and I have a system of codes I’ve prepared for you to memorise. But first, please tell me what equipment you’ve got with you, including in the storage seals, as quickly as you can.”

Tenten’s eyes lit up with a sudden glow.

“ _ThirtyexplosivetagsseventyshurikenonebrandnewFūmashurikenfortykunaifourkusarigamafoursicklestwolargemacesoneflailfourshortswords…”_

-o-

In the absence of any special equipment or preparation time, Naruto’s only notable assets were shadow clones and Kin. Given that he was facing an opponent who probably knew about the Shadow Clone Technique, Naruto would really have liked to have more options. But if there was one thing the Academy took pains to drum into every student, it was that genin did not attempt to learn new techniques on their own, and the instructors took an unhealthy delight in showing children examples of why not. Naruto hadn’t forgotten being shown the girl who’d started to mould Fire Element chakra on her own and didn’t know how to stop (the worst part was how little there was in the urn), or the finalist who’d thought the Earth Element’s Flesh to Stone Technique would give him a secret edge in the Genin Exam (and was now regularly knocked over by students doing cleanup duty in the second storage shed). As for learning a super-advanced ninjutsu like the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique without supervision… there were plenty of safer ways to gain new powers, like stabbing himself through the heart with a magic katana, or having monster parts implanted into his body, or making pacts with supernatural beings without checking _exactly_ what they wanted in return. Naruto still couldn’t articulate what had possessed him.

Meanwhile, Kakashi-sensei had been understandably in no hurry to teach a freshly-graduated class idiot new ninjutsu in the days before Wave, and after Wave they’d spent all their time on the road. Since their return, Naruto had had enough other things on his mind to overlook the possibility of advanced training, and he was regretting it now.

Naruto’s second asset was Kin. He didn’t want to rely on her for taijutsu—if she was really a new recruit, it would be dangerous to put her up against Tenten, whereas Shikamaru wouldn’t require much skill to take out if you managed to trap him in melee in the first place. Her other ability was more interesting. Genin weren’t taught how to defend against genjutsu, only how to dispel it once it was active. Granted, having to put a bell next to the target, instead of simply making seals the way Kurenai-sensei did, was pretty lame. But if he forgot the genjutsu part and just looked at it as an unblockable, one-hit-kill area-of-effect ranged attack, it suddenly became quite promising.

Meanwhile, Shikamaru had his Shadow Imitation Technique, which at its most basic completely locked down one target as long as you were willing to keep spending the chakra and not doing anything else useful. Naruto felt confident that there were more advanced applications as well—he could already think of several ways in which forcing someone to mimic your movements could be used to take them out or make them a hazard to their own team.

Shikamaru also had to be fairly intelligent to have accomplished this much with the resources available to him. He himself had a single narrow-applicability technique, and Ino had a single powerful and expensive ability that left her helpless if it missed. Chōji was a very respectable taijutsu user with specialised ninjutsu skills, but one good fighter did not a Chūnin-Exam-conquering team make. And yet.

On top of that, _Shikamaru’s_ notable asset was Tenten, an older and more experienced genin whose only known qualities were specialisation in tool use, an abrasive personality, and exceptional proficiency in the use of storage seals. The last of which was cause for special concern, because depending on her skill and equipment clearance they could contain anything from spare kunai to a trebuchet.

Now, as for objectives…

Shikamaru was a team player, and that meant he’d probably want Tenten to win as well. Certainly, he wasn’t going to stab her in the back. If nothing else, he’d still be in the same village after the exam was over, and the cold hells had no fury like a kunoichi scorned who probably had access to enough chains, blades and pointy things to set up her own ANBU interrogation facility.

Shikamaru’s strategy would thus have to revolve around eliminating Naruto, since that would leave Tenten with Kin, against whom she was at a major advantage. She could freely choose to engage at range or in melee (her unknown taijutsu skills augmented by a wide arsenal of weapons), and she had multiple means of deflecting Kin’s bells. On the other hand, if Shikamaru were the one left with Kin, he’d be stuck with no real way to deal with her attacks, trying to use one medium-range technique against an enemy equally comfortable at long and melee range.

On the third hand (a perk of the Shadow Clone Technique), if Shikamaru were to eliminate Kin himself, he’d leave Naruto with Tenten, a dangerous match-up for her. Tenten might have an enormous arsenal, but Naruto could create virtually _any_ object if he knew its structure in sufficient detail (or a lot of objects, anyway—the Transformation Technique wasn’t magic), and he’d managed to get through the exam so far without demonstrating most of his techniques, and Shikamaru would likely know both of these things.

On the _fourth_ hand, Shikamaru wouldn’t want to be left alone with him either. Given Shikamaru’s low raw firepower, Naruto could simply bury him in clones. So Shikamaru would need to rely on Tenten to simultaneously defend him and create an opening through which he could take out Naruto, thereby both winning himself and leaving Tenten with her preferred opponent.

That would be another weakness for Shikamaru: he couldn’t take opportunities to eliminate Kin even if he saw them, because it would leave one of the team alone with Naruto, and both would be necessary to take him out.

Overall, then, the two teams would pursue asymmetric goals. Shikamaru would seek to take out Naruto with Tenten’s support, while trying to avoid or disable, but not defeat, Kin.

Naruto’s objective was simpler. He’d heard about the abuse—not combat injuries but unnecessary abuse—that Kin had inflicted on Sakura while he’d stood by, oblivious. In a way, being left to imagine it was even worse than if he’d seen it himself.

So his aim was to have either of his opponents take Kin down once she outlived her usefulness, removing themselves from the battlefield in the process, even if he had to place Shikamaru in check to force him to do it.

-o-

“I’m sorry about this, Naruto,” Shikamaru said as the barriers went down. “But my mum made me promise that I’d make a real effort to get into the Finals. Meaning I can’t hold back too much.”

Naruto shrugged. Other people’s responsibilities to their parents were not something he had a great deal of respect for, especially after seeing the effect they had on Hinata. And if Shikamaru thought he could beat him while holding back _at all_ —well, Naruto looked forward to the coming curb-stomp.

“Uzumaki-style Ninjutsu: Private Party Technique!”

A bunch of shadow clones transformed into the soundproof black panels Naruto was coming to love, placing him in a sealed environment. While he made his preparations, Kin served as his eyes on the outside, watching enemy activity and ready to alert him by destroying the rear panel if necessary.

He managed to stow away his equipment pouch just in time as Tenten popped his panels with shuriken. Well, two could play at that game. Or ten. Or thirty.

“Uzumaki-style Shurikenjutsu: Firing Squad Technique!”

Several rows of shadow clones began throwing shuriken at great speed, some aimed at Shikamaru but the majority targeted at the floor, walls and ceiling.

Tenten moved to protect Shikamaru without a second’s delay. Drawing a huge war fan from a storage scroll, she proceeded to block shuriken after shuriken with exact motions that wasted no unnecessary energy. Most vanished in puffs of shadow clone smoke, but a few were real enough to bounce off in random directions.

And then there were the five that flew over her head, just out of blocking reach. Each was a clone ready to transform, touch off the rear wall and go for Shikamaru’s undefended back with the kind of explosive horizontal leap he’d accidentally learned during tree walking.

While they were still flying, Shikamaru reached for a storage scroll. Then, in a single turning motion, he drew one of Tenten’s katanas out of it and performed a textbook iaijutsu slash. The clones, only just landing on the wall, were in no position to dodge.

So far, it was as Naruto had suspected. He’d need to get past Tenten in order to have a clear shot at Shikamaru. The bad news was that Shikamaru had apparently been smart enough to borrow some of Tenten’s gear and that he knew uses for it that weren’t part of Academy training, both of which would make his capabilities that much harder to predict. The good news was that, judging from that move, his strength and speed were still mediocre, and nobody in this day and age took iaijutsu seriously anyway. If Naruto could get a clone or two within melee range, it wouldn’t matter if Shikamaru had been trained by one of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen.

The next step, then, was to deal with Tenten. Naruto’s firing squad drew kunai and advanced in a particularly intimidating manga-inspired formation.

“C-4!” Shikamaru called out.

Tenten swiftly interposed herself between Shikamaru and the clones, a many-headed flail whirling around her. Like the Demon Brothers’ bladed chain, flails were an obscure weapon, one from an age predating standardised ninja gear, and difficult to counter using normal taijutsu. But while they had some distinctive strengths, including reach and power, they also had certain disadvantages. For one, they required total concentration to wield, as their potential for self-harm was even greater than that of nunchaku. For another, they limited the user’s range of motion, since once you started whirling a flail, it was very hard to stop, and tricky to quickly change direction.

These two weaknesses naturally suggested which of his plans Naruto would pursue next. His clones moved in.

Tenten alternated broad swings with small abrupt motions, careful footwork keeping her stable as the flail ceased to be an individual weapon and became a solid steel aura of death around her. To Naruto’s rapidly vanishing clones, her offence was not a matter of individual blows, but rather of instant destruction as soon as they entered her expanded range.

Naruto waited until Tenten’s focus became absolute, then gave the signal. Tenten’s own skill would be her downfall as—

A clone froze as Shikamaru’s elongated shadow touched its own. _The_ clone, out of an entire crowd of indistinguishable clones assaulting Tenten.

Shikamaru sharply slapped himself on the chest. The clone, trapped by the Shadow Imitation Technique, was forced to do the same. The damage dispelled its disguise—revealing Kin, who had been _this_ close to bringing her bells within effective range of an unsuspecting Tenten.

Shikamaru reached for another storage scroll, and pulled out a set of ANBU-style manacles. Why did Tenten carry around ANBU-style manacles? No, stupid question. She was a highly-prepared kunoichi who was on the same team as Rock Lee.

Tenten kept Naruto’s clones locked down while Shikamaru tossed the manacles to Kin. In an impressive feat of coordination, he moved his hands so that she made the catch. Kin began to shackle herself…

“Substitution Technique!”

If there was one thing Naruto could not permit to happen, it was having Shikamaru take Kin out of the fight without formally making her surrender, leaving Naruto in a two-on-one scenario. Kin certainly wouldn’t surrender of her own accord, not when sticking around meant letting the enemy team pound Naruto into dust while she watched.

However, nor was she going to let herself be defeated while there was still a chance to win. Naruto had consent to swap with her, leaving _him_ caught in Shikamaru’s technique while she disappeared together with the still-unlocked manacles. Before Shikamaru could do anything, Kin used their agreed-on emergency anti-Shadow Imitation counter. Namely, she kicked him hard in the side, sending him flying and breaking the connection.

Naruto didn’t know how Shikamaru had managed to single out Kin, but that had been too close. Somehow or other, Shikamaru had deduced Naruto’s plans for her, which meant he could no longer use her as a sacrificial pawn—at least not until a really good opportunity came up. But there was no time to dwell on it. His error had been to use a tactic with a single point of weakness, one which Shikamaru could exploit despite his low offensive capability. This time he would do better.

“Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

Tenten moved in to intercept.

“E-7!” Shikamaru called out.

Tenten drew a full-sized naginata from a storage scroll maybe twice the length of her hand. Her first swing obliterated an entire line of clones, as they had not been prepared for anything like that sort of range and speed.

The clones were pressed hard, their numbers barely compensating for their constant destruction as Tenten spun in unpredictable circles and spirals, ducking to perform low sweeps, rising with diagonal slashes, reversing direction at unexpected moments and occasionally using the back end of the weapon to stop clones coming in from behind. Watching from the rear of the room, Naruto found himself entranced by the deadly beauty of her dance.

It would take Uzumaki Naruto himself to overcome that level of incredible martial superiority. Fortunately, he _was_ Uzumaki Naruto himself.

“Uzumaki-style Taijutsu: Spoked Wheel Technique!”

Naruto visualised the space around Tenten as divided into regular radial segments, each clone assigned a segment from which they would attack and move, attack and move, with coordinated timing that would consistently create blind spots for Tenten. Without superhuman reflexes or eyes in the back of her head, it was only a matter of time until she went down. He created and dispelled a clone to send the others the information.

Each clone immediately created another shadow clone, pre-transformed into a spear. Naruto was aware that kunai weren’t always enough for melee combat, and had taken the time to familiarise himself with the materials and structure of a few different weapons specifically for this sort of situation. Of course, Naruto wasn’t particularly _good_ with spears, and they’d vanish with a single instance of solid contact, but he vastly outnumbered Tenten and he only needed one solid hit.

After a few seconds, the first blind spot came up. The clone caught the timing for a killer thrust—and froze for a fraction of a second as Shikamaru’s shadow flicked against his foot. His balance disturbed, he missed his opportunity, and Tenten quickly destroyed him.

The same thing happened again and again. Shikamaru’s shadow lashed out for a series of touches, like a cat’s tongue lapping water, each so brief that it barely cost any chakra to maintain, but lasting just long enough to disrupt the clones’ movements and make them vulnerable. And every time, it was the clone in position for a successful hit.

Shikamaru had worked out the pattern.

Naruto quickly created and popped more clones, devising new patterns as fast as he could to stay ahead of Shikamaru’s power to decode them—while simultaneously generating new spearmen to reinforce the steadily dwindling army.

He was fighting a losing battle. Tenten seemed to have an extraordinary ability to concentrate on her taijutsu, getting the best out of whatever weapon she was wielding, while Shikamaru’s support kept Naruto from taking advantage of her one-pointed focus.

But unlike the flail, the naginata’s motion did not risk knocking Kin’s bells away before they could do their work. And the inertia of its broad movements would make it hard to dodge even if she saw the attack coming in time.

Naruto watched Kin throw the needle—and then Tenten, aborting a movement that she should not have had the reflexes to abort, knocked it out of the air at the limit of the naginata’s range.

For a split second, Naruto was completely bewildered. Then he saw Shikamaru’s shadow withdraw from Tenten’s.

At that same instant, Shikamaru, his hands already together in the seal he was using to chain Shadow Imitations, segued smoothly into the Substitution Technique, swapping places with one of Naruto’s discarded shuriken and evading the needle meant for _him_ in the nick of time.

Naruto felt his temper starting to rise. Even when he was fighting Zabuza, there’d been a certain back-and-forth dynamic, the two fighters reacting to each other’s techniques and constantly looking for turnaround opportunities and unexpected advantages. But Shikamaru, a mere fellow genin, was simply standing there and shutting down every single move as if he’d seen it coming.

“How in cold hell can you be prepared for _everything_?!”

Shikamaru gave him a sardonic look.

“A shinobi does not need to prepare for every possible stratagem,” he said like an Academy instructor quoting some great work of ninja wisdom. “Only for the ones his enemy will use.”

Shikamaru’s superior attitude was making Naruto even angrier. Screw trying to find Shikamaru’s weaknesses through iterative testing. It was time to set up for the endgame.

Naruto sent another bunch of clones at Shikamaru. Naturally, Tenten moved to intercept.

Shikamaru’s Substitution had left him standing close to a side wall, and the clones split into four groups accordingly. One ran along the floor as normal. One ran along the wall, attacking Tenten from a new angle. One ran further up the wall, circling around outside Tenten’s reach to get onto the rear wall and attack Shikamaru. And one moved onto the ceiling, waiting for a chance to drop down with a surprise attack.

“L-1! F-13!”

Without looking, Tenten threw a kunai in a random direction.

The third group pushed off against the rear wall, flying at Shikamaru, kunai out and ready for any more unexpected katanas.

“Substitution Technique!”

Shikamaru vanished from sight—to be replaced by Tenten’s kunai. Substituting with someone else’s thrown kunai was not normally possible. You’d need to know its speed and angle of throw very precisely, which suggested that either his pre-made codes had included exacting instructions on how to throw (and Tenten was capable of carrying them out without error), or that he’d calculated the necessary values on the fly. Both possibilities were disturbing in their own ways.

Just as the clones reached the transported kunai, the explosive tag attached to it went off.

With one group down, the remaining three focused on Tenten, now ready to attack her from both horizontal and vertical positions and this time taking advantage of a spear’s extensive reach.

“B-8!”

Tenten swapped weapons quickly, drawing two short swords and taking a few steps back. As the clones attempted to stab her, she quickly dealt a light chopping blow to each spear, making it vanish.

Naruto changed tactics. On a signal, his clones created swords as well, though only one each. He’d experimented with dual-wielding before, and quickly come to the conclusion that there were more efficient ways to slice himself into ribbons (which made Tenten’s expertise all the more surprising). On the plus side, his research into swords had also taught him about sword-breakers, cool sawtooth-like edges that would capture Tenten’s blades just long enough to leave her vulnerable as the clone swords popped.

The clones on the wall could no longer reach Tenten directly without coming down to the floor. But they had other options. As Tenten fought, clone after clone launched itself from the wall or ceiling—out of the way of any pesky Shadow Imitation—and flew through the air at her blind spots.

“5-3-18! 5-8-11! 5-7-7!”

Shikamaru rapidly reeled off instruction after instruction. Tenten turned and twisted accordingly, destroying clone after clone that should have been in perfect ambushing position.

That one at least Naruto could decode. They were his clones’ spatial coordinates, and he had the perfect counter lined up.

“Uzumaki-style Ninjutsu: Signal to Noise Technique!”

“7-6-10!”

“4-6-4-9!”

“42-42-564!”

Tenten frowned.

There were half a dozen additional Shikamarus in her peripheral vision, each shouting out random numbers, and her constant motion left her unable to track which one was real.

Naruto was pleased with his move for about three seconds before he noticed that Tenten was continuing to listen only to the real Shikamaru.

“What?! How?!” the increasingly aggravated Naruto demanded.

“I don’t follow stupid instructions,” Tenten said in a matter-of-fact voice as she destroyed the last clone.

Through the gradually descending screen of rage, a little alarm bell rang through Naruto’s mind. There was something _wrong_ with Shikamaru’s strategy.

“Why are you fighting so defensively? There’s no way you can win if you don’t attack!”

“A ninja only needs one opening to win,” Shikamaru told him, that wise-man-quote voice even more irritating the second time round. “The rest of the battle is spent preparing for it.”

 

That line sent a shiver down Naruto’s spine. Did Shikamaru mean he’d... no, he couldn’t have.

Whatever. Naruto couldn’t revise his plans based on a single throwaway line that was probably intended as psychological warfare anyway. He nodded to one of the clones he’d been keeping for personal defence ever since the Private Party Technique. The clone swapped with a real kunai which a now-gone clone had dropped almost directly at Tenten’s feet.

“Uzumaki-style Taijutsu: One-Man Army Technique!”

Suddenly, that clone became enveloped in a cloud of smoke. Every single item of his clothing had transformed back into a shadow clone—forehead protector, wristbands, jacket, trousers, sandals, underwear…

The original clone quickly dispelled himself before the smoke faded and the other ninja were hit with an unintended form of the Sexy Technique.

Tenten, on the other hand, was now surrounded by a whole crowd of shadow clones in tight proximity, not taking the time to draw weapons but attacking bare-handed before she could react.

She destroyed several immediately, but the extreme close range was a problem for her swords, and one clone managed to hit her hard on the back with an open palm strike, making her stumble forwards. The rest immediately piled on top of her, and soon she was lost in the ensuing mountain.

At least for a second. Then the clones on one side of the pile started popping, one after another. Tenten quickly worked her way out, revealing the punch daggers in her hands. She dropped them in favour of a mace, and went to work on the prone clones before they could get up.

That was the final straw.

“Just remember, Shikamaru. What happens next is on you. You made me do this. You made me use the Uzumaki Style’s one forbidden technique.”

Naruto struck a dramatic pose and took a deep breath.

“Uzumaki-style Kinjutsu!”

 

There was a cloud of smoke, and a chorus of dozens of ninja shouting “Substitution Technique” in a single voice.

When the smoke cleared, countless Kins were standing on every available surface, in the places where the various shuriken and discarded objects had been before. The objects themselves were all now piled up in one small area around where Naruto had been, leaving only a single predictable spot for anyone wishing to use the Substitution Technique to escape.

Without hesitation, all of the Kins threw their needles at Shikamaru.

The countless angles made conventional dodging impossible. If Tenten didn’t protect him, the real set of bells would reach him and he’d fall under the genjutsu. If she did, it would incapacitate her instead.

Shikamaru had time for one and only one instruction.

“12-43-17.”

Then a lot of things happened very fast.

As the first clone needle hit Shikamaru, it vanished from existence—but so did he.

The Kin army, instantly drawing the obvious conclusion, dispelled their disguises. Only two Kins remained.

“Shadow Imitation Technique!”

Before anyone could react, Tenten lashed out with a very long weighted chain, wrapping it around one of the Naruto clones and yanking it towards her. The clone soared through the air, then slammed against the floor at Tenten’s feet hard enough to make it disappear. A caltrop which had previously been in its pocket fell to the floor.

Shikamaru’s shadow was already in motion. It moved _through_ the caltrop’s shadow, and twisted around to capture the other, real, Kin.

Naruto, in caltrop form, had time for a moment of horrified realisation. As far as he knew, the Shadow Imitation Technique could not be used to hold multiple people at the same time, whether as a limitation of Shikamaru’s chakra reserves, his control or the technique itself. But he was not a person right now—and if the difficulty of holding someone was set by the target’s size, chakra level or ability to physically resist, then in any of those scenarios he was helpless.

Tenten picked up the caltrop and held it tight, leaving Naruto unable to transform back thanks to the Rule of Conservation of Space.

“You’ve lost. Dispel your clones.”

Naruto didn’t have a choice. While he couldn’t surrender in caltrop form, and he wasn’t unconscious, by any real-world measure he was as good as dead. The clone army vanished.

Shikamaru, having dispelled his disguise in order to use the Shadow Imitation Technique, had no expression on his face as he addressed Tenten. “Now, can I make one last suggestion? Please throw Naruto at the wall as hard as you can, and have a weapon ready to deal a killing blow as soon as he transforms back.”

Then he turned to consider Kin, still held in the Shadow Imitation. At some point during the battle, she’d swapped her kunai holster to be on the same side as his (the left, as opposed to the right where ninja normally kept them), preventing the obvious Shadow Imitation trick. Casually, Shikamaru reached into his holster and pulled out one particular kunai, its blade missing and the broken-off edge blunt. He raised it to his throat. Kin imitated his movements, but the kunai she held next to her carotid artery had a distinct, sharp edge.

“I surrender,” Kin muttered.

Tenten began to lift her arm for the throw.

There was a puff of smoke. The small slip of colour-matched paper on her back, glued there with an open-palm strike by one of the members of the One-Man Army, transformed into a shadow clone. While you couldn’t transform _into_ a liquid, any liquids you happened to have on your person when you used the Transformation Technique made the journey with you into phase space, and that included glue-covered objects (with the bonus that the glue wasn’t going to dry in the absence of air).

The clone sharply slapped the back of her wrist to make her drop the caltrop. Then he grabbed said wrist and pulled her off-balance. Before she knew it, she was on the floor with a kunai pressed against the back of her neck.

“I surrender,” she acknowledged.

The battle was over. As an afterthought, Shikamaru removed his earplugs.


	26. Chapter 26

“Hold it.” Naruto pulled Shikamaru into an unused conference room as they left the arena.

“You’re not going to let me get my lunch first, are you?” Shikamaru asked with an air of resignation.

“Nope. Now, explain to me how you managed to control that entire battle. You shut down every one of my moves as if you saw it coming, and there is no way that was just good luck.”

Shikamaru sat on the edge of the oval table, ignoring the chairs.

“It wasn’t anything special. Observation. Speech and body language. Modelling thought patterns. Weighing possibilities against existing knowledge to come up with probabilities.”

The last time Naruto had spoken to Shikamaru, in the Forest of Death, Shikamaru _had_ showed off uncanny observational skills, and it had struck Naruto as suspicious even then. Naruto himself was used to watching others—predicting and adjusting to their reactions had been a key part of maintaining his idiot persona. But it wasn’t magic. It didn’t let you read minds, or compile perfect personality profiles from a few minutes’ spying, or see the future. Something else had to be going on.

“You knew exactly how I was going to fight,” Naruto insisted. “There’s no way watching me told you _that_ much. I wasn’t even human-shaped for a lot of the battle.”

“It told me more than you think,” Shikamaru said. “You can’t move exactly like Kin. Kin can’t move exactly like you. The real you, or a clone protecting the real you, moves more cautiously than the rest. When you’re switching targets, you glance at the new one, then look straight ahead with eyes slightly unfocused as you perform mental simulations. A thousand tiny details.”

“That’s still not enough. You can’t read the body language of dozens of clones at a time. And you can’t figure out someone’s entire plan from how their eyes move.”

“It’s actually refreshing to hear someone being so sceptical,” Shikamaru told him. “Chōji and Ino have come to think I can do anything, meaning it’s harder to teach them to use the same techniques for themselves.

“But there is nothing complicated about what I do. I’ve spent years training alongside you in the Academy. I’ve gathered many descriptions of your mission performance. I’ve watched you during the Chūnin Exam. And you’d be surprised how many of the ninja you defeated were more than eager to share information about your methods when I told them I expected to fight you.

“Using that information isn’t complicated either. It’s not some mystical lost art. Anyone can do it, it’s just that most people haven’t been taught to think in the right way.

“I take a base rate from my knowledge of how a typical genin fights. I modify it a little to account for things that are unique to you, like the difference between their normal clones and your shadow clones. Then I get information about your battles and use it as a test, adjusted for false negatives and false positives. Every time I get more information, I update the probabilities and get closer to predicting how you’ll fight.”

“Bullshit,” Naruto stated flatly. “You did _not_ beat me using a series of educated guesses. I didn’t see you make one wrong move during that fight. I used a bunch of tricks no one had ever seen before, and you were ready for every one of them. What else did you have up your sleeve?”

“Fair question,” Shikamaru nodded to himself. He slid off the edge of the table and into a standing position.

“There’s this saying. ‘The tactician achieves victory by knowing his enemy’s plans. The shinobi achieves victory by writing them.’”

Naruto’s eyes narrowed.

“I’m not trying to provoke you this time,” Shikamaru went on quickly. “It’s just that I know Uchiha Sonshi’s _The Way of the Ninja_ off by heart, and it’s full of lines like that. Uchiha Itachi once gave my dad a copy as a birthday present.

“You can borrow it if you like.”

Naruto had too much on his mind right now to worry about reading material. “So you’re saying…”

“I didn’t just calculate probabilities and respond to them during that battle. I influenced you in the direction of the ones I was most prepared for. For example, early on, you were faced with the choice to either attack Tenten, or bypass her and target me directly. I had her use the flail, a weapon that limits its user’s mobility and response time in exchange for offensive power. Meaning she seemed stronger to you, and therefore more satisfying to defeat, while at the same time she seemed wide open to attacks that relied on cunning and subtlety. There were several things you were likely to do at that moment, but Tenten using a flail tilted the probabilities the way I wanted. In fact, directing you through Tenten’s choice of weapons was very effective, since you always assumed she was just going for whatever gave her the biggest taijutsu advantage.”

Naruto felt a chill. _A ninja only needs one opening to win…_

“Then… the ending. You _wanted_ it to end that way?”

Shikamaru nodded.

“ _Why_?”

“Well, Kin was going to retire after the match anyway, and Tenten would be better off not making it to the Finals.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t tell her I said this, but she’d lose in any Finals matchup except against Sakura. And such a loss wouldn’t benefit her, because it would be caused by her tendency to think in straight lines, and I don’t think she’s ready to understand that yet. Her beating Sakura wouldn’t do anyone any good either. Tenten would learn nothing, and would be unhappy about her skills being wasted on such an inferior opponent. Sakura wouldn’t have the chance to keep shifting her view of her capabilities, which her other likely matchups will allow her to do.”

Naruto stared at Shikamaru, his unease growing.

“How can you do that? How can you decide that you know better than everyone how their lives should go?”

An ironic smile touched the corners of Shikamaru’s lips for a brief second. Then his face returned to its usual slightly tired apathy.

“You get better with practice, as with any skill. You keep gathering data. You keep refining probabilities. You keep listening to people joke that they’re just here to mess with the teachers, while their body language screams of a need for acceptance and their clothes smell of library dust one day and training wood cedar the next.”

The question spilled out of Naruto of its own accord.

“But… if you knew… then _why_?”

Shikamaru hesitated.

“Because you would not have become who you are,” he finally said. “The Nara are taught from birth to live in shadow, so that others do not have to live in theirs.”

“Does it make you happy?” Naruto asked in a dizzy mix of horror and fascination, no longer wholly aware of what he was saying. “Reading people like open books? Making their choices for them?”

Shikamaru looked almost wistful.

“On occasion. Mostly, though, I’m too busy juggling moral philosophy, solipsism and predestination.

“Let’s leave it there for today,” he said with an unusual gentleness in his voice. “There’ll be plenty of other opportunities for us to talk if we both survive the Finals.”

-o-

“Well done, my dears!” Anko exclaimed. “You are without doubt the loveliest little caterpillars I’ve seen crawl around the Chūnin Exam for some time. You even managed to surprise me, and believe me, I’ve seen everything. _Everything_.

“So here’s the good news. In recognition of you not sucking—too much—you now get to spend the next month weaving your cocoons as hard as you can, so that when the Finals come you can finally turn into those beautiful butterflies I promised earlier. Check it out, I even stuck with the same metaphor. That’s how much I love you guys!”

The genin did not seem particularly cheered by this.

“A whole month?” Sasuke asked petulantly.

“A whole month,” Anko repeated with what may have been glee. “The Finals are a big deal, and all the bigwigs are going to want front row seats. There will be real live daimyo, not even the stuffed plushie kind, watching you fight, and getting a daimyo to do anything fast is like getting the Hokage to sign off on a requisition form for an army-killer war machine—you know deep down he wants to watch the world burn as much as the rest of us, but making him actually do the paperwork is like pulling teeth.”

She paused.

“That’s a bad metaphor. Pulling teeth is _easy_ when you know how. Ask me sometime if you want tips from an expert.”

Sakura raised her hand, unable to resist correcting the teacher.

“Actually, Mitarashi-sensei, it’s not about how hard it is, it’s about how much it hurts.”

Anko beamed as if unexpectedly handed her favourite treat. “That’s exactly what I keep telling my lovers.

“Now off you go, my dears. A month isn’t very much time, and if you’re not training until you bleed, you can bet that your opponent will be.”

-o-

Kakashi-sensei was ready to meet them at the Forest of Death’s exit.

“Well done, you three!” he (probably) smiled. “I am very proud of you. I can’t believe all three of you made it to the Chūnin Exam Finals on your first try.”

“If you didn’t think we could do it, why’d you recommend us in the first place?” Naruto asked.

“Now,” Kakashi-sensei continued, “as you’ve doubtless been told, you get a month to train before the Finals, and I’ve given some thought to the best way to do this. But before we get into that, there’s something very important I need to talk to you about. Let’s go somewhere more private.”

Team Seven followed Kakashi into one of the many abandoned buildings littering the area near the Forest of Death (their origins a mystery, since it was clear no one wanted to live or set up shop next door to Leaf’s most dangerous training zone).

“I want to remind you of the protocol for reporting interactions with foreign shinobi. Namely, you do it without fail, as soon as possible.

“Naruto, you got lucky with Haku. He was a powerful fighter, chūnin-level at least, and in constant contact with an experienced jōnin. If he’d been a little more cold-hearted, he could easily have led you into a devastating trap, and none of your team would ever know what happened to you. By not telling your team leader, you put yourself in danger, and you put your team in danger.”

That _was_ , in fact, exactly what had happened with Haku’s kiss.

“What you should have done was to tell me as soon as you got back that evening. It would have been even better to send a shadow clone while you were still _with_ Haku, assuming you could do it without him noticing.

“You need to be clear on this, and I am talking to all three of you here. During your missions, you will regularly encounter foreign shinobi. Some may have no interest in your mission. Others may be potential allies. Others still will be enemies, and they may well disguise themselves as one of the other two. Make the wrong call, and you might doom both yourself and the mission.

“But you’re not alone. You have the rest of your team to help you decide the correct course of action. Four people are harder to deceive than one. _That’s_ why you have to report contact with foreign shinobi. Not because it needs to be noted on a form somewhere, not because you’ve broken a rule and have to confess, but because your team is there to support you, and if you want to survive as a shinobi, you have to let them.

“Do you all understand?”

Everyone nodded, though Naruto, who was used to being self-reliant, and to those in authority making decisions that ended up hurting him, nodded more slowly than Sakura, as did Sasuke for some reason. But if Kakashi-sensei noticed, he didn’t comment.

“Good. Now, to business.” Kakashi-sensei’s voice lightened.

“Sasuke, you’ve done very well at applying your Sharingan to taijutsu, but you still don’t have a clue how it relates to ninjutsu and genjutsu. As Leaf’s Sharingan expert, I am going to personally tutor you in these things with a gruelling training regimen I designed myself.

“Naruto, you have learned how to use your shadow clones in a variety of creative ways, but that technique is all you’ve got. Sooner or later you’ll meet opponents who know how to fight shadow clone users, and they will shut you down _hard_. So I am sending you to one of Leaf’s greatest ninjutsu masters. I’m sure he will have plenty of ideas on how to whip you into shape.”

“What about me?” Sakura asked hesitantly.

Kakashi-sensei gave what was probably a very evil smile. “Oh, Sakura, I have special plans for _you_ …”

-o-

It was with a feeling of apprehension that Naruto walked the long, winding road to his destination, and not just because of the name. While he knew the adverts for the popular tourist resort emphasised its outdoor baths, ideally located beneath the shadow of the town’s most beautiful trees, there had to have been a better name than “Shady Springs”.

No, the apprehension was all to do with the man he was going to meet—Jiraiya of the Leaf Three, the twisted fiend responsible for Kakashi-sensei’s creepy novels. There was no telling what someone like that might want to teach him.

Then there was the description Kakashi-sensei gave him (after deciding that the tiny author photo on the back cover of his books didn’t do the man justice). Long, stylish white hair. Elegant red haori. Striking traditional clogs and an impressive custom forehead protector with the traditional character for “oil” on it. Oh, and two distinctive lines of red paint going down from his eyes that gave his face additional form and definition. It sounded like Kakashi-sensei had a crush on the guy.

_Did_ Kakashi-sensei have a crush on the guy? Probably not, Naruto decided, given that to the best of his deliberately limited knowledge, Kakashi-sensei’s beloved books were all about heterosexual relationships. Besides, if he did, he wouldn’t be so open about it, not in a society where minority inclinations were expected to stay behind closed doors and the court of public opinion was not kind to those who brought them into the open.

At least that was how Naruto understood it. It was hard to get information on things polite society simply didn’t speak about, and he couldn’t even turn to manga, because while he generally enjoyed dipping into everything from all-out samurai action to slice-of-life, he was not touching that particular genre with a barge pole. Which was a problem because he had only recently fallen for another boy, and he had no idea what that meant.

Before Haku, there had been Sakura. And after Haku, there was now Hinata. Where did that leave him? Were you allowed to like both genders? Was he just confused because he hadn’t gone through puberty yet? It was supposedly due to happen soon, and what if at that time he found himself attracted to one gender for the rest of his life? Which one would it be?

Even it _was_ both, it might be a moot point anyway. Death was ubiquitous in the shinobi world, but Naruto had no intention of letting it anywhere near him or Hinata, and couldn’t see any reason why they might break up (assuming she turned out to be OK with dating a sexually uncertain demonically-possessed prankster). Which meant his default plan would be for them to spend their whole lives together. Would it matter, then, that part of him wanted to be with men, if he was already in a happy relationship with a woman? Or would he feel like part of himself was trapped, unable to express itself, like his intelligence during those long years at the Academy?

Coming back to manga, which had never yet steered him wrong as a guide to romantic relationships, it sounded like there might be a third option. The love triangle, isosceles or equilateral. Maybe even the harem. It _was_ outrageous. It was something he’d never so much as heard of happening in real life, at least within the village he knew. But people wouldn’t keep writing about it if they didn’t think it was possible, right?

What would Hinata think of that possibility? It was probably the kind of thing he should ask her about, so he could know in advance in case he ever found himself wanting to make it happen. Except he still hadn’t told her about the Wave mission, or the Demon Fox or Haku. One earthshattering revelation at a time, he once again told himself, and he had yet to even begin working through them.

-o-

The gates of the town loomed before him at last. Enough introspection. He had a challenge ahead of him.

Jiraiya had left specific instructions with Kakashi-sensei. If Naruto wanted to prove himself worthy of training, he would have to hunt Jiraiya down like a _real_ ninja. And a real ninja on an infiltration mission never gave the slightest clue that he wasn’t an ordinary civilian. In other words, he had to complete this task without using any ninja abilities whatsoever. Other than that, Jiraiya had apparently said, “anything goes”.

The perverted writer must not have been back to Leaf for a long time. Everyone in the village knew there were some things you never ever thought of combining, like open flame and explosives, or wild dogs and small children (or anyone else, really). But the worst of the worst, the ultimate alchemy of disaster, was to combine Naruto with carte blanche.

That was one of the man’s mistakes. The other was the simple fact of setting Naruto a challenge, which had never yet ended well for anyone ignorant enough to underestimate him. And the third was the fact that Naruto had had a long, boring journey, and was in no mood to be made to jump through hoops to get the training Kakashi-sensei had promised him unconditionally.

Slipping into an alleyway, he exchanged his beloved (but unmistakeable) ninja uniform for a pair of shorts, a T-shirt with “I’m a ninja sealmaster—if you see me running, try to keep up” written on it, and an oversized cap which conveniently concealed his face. Then he headed for the nearest shop.

“Hey mister! Hey! Down here!” Naruto waved at the man at the counter, angling himself to look a little smaller than he was.

“What do you want?”

“Have you seen my uncle?” Naruto asked in the innocent, hopeful voice of a boy who promised that the quick-setting glue he was buying was intended only for Takahashi-sensei’s hands.

“Ah, lost, are you?” the man asked sympathetically.

“No, he is,” Naruto replied. “The thing is, poor Uncle Jirō’s been getting on in years, and then there was the accident… and this time he’s decided that he’s the great ninja Jiraiya, and he’s got himself a second-hand costume from the local theatre’s charity sale, and now he’s running around Shady Springs making trouble and saying he can do ninja magic. My mum and I have been looking everywhere for him before _real_ ninja hear about him and decide he’s trying to muscle in on their business.

“So anyway, have you seen him?” Naruto gave the shopkeeper a much less complimentary version of Kakashi-sensei’s description.

“Sure, boy,” the man said. “He was in here earlier, looking for souvenirs. I think he went up thataway. And tell you what, I’ll pass the word along for everyone to keep an eye out for the guy. If you still haven’t found him tomorrow, I’m sure someone will be able to help you look.”

“Thanks, mister!”

Naruto ran off “thataway”, already thinking about how to refine the procedure for his next destination.

-o-

Naruto was getting tired. The problem had turned out _not_ to be finding sightings of his target. It seemed like Jiraiya had been _everywhere_ , and time after time Naruto arrived at a place only to be told that the man had just left, and was heading in such-and-such a direction. Hours later, Naruto was back where he’d started with nothing to show for it.

It was apparent that simple pursuit wasn’t going to do the job. But nothing in life was random. There had to be a pattern to Jiraiya’s movements that would let Naruto predict where he’d be heading next. Naruto pulled out a free tourist map of Shady Springs, put dots at every location where Jiraiya had supposedly been, and then drew lines between them to plot the man’s reported route.

Then he looked at the map again, and his jaw dropped.

There, drawn in his own hand, was a perfect sketch of Jiraiya’s face sticking its tongue out at him.

 

That did it. Naruto stormed off to the first shop. The kid gloves were coming off, and that old man wouldn’t know what hit him.

“Hey, mister, so about my uncle—”

“There he is! Grab him, Kobayashi!”

Before he knew it, Naruto had been thoroughly restrained from behind by a heavily-muscled baker’s apprentice. To be sure, he could get out of a mere civilian’s grip just like that, but he had an unfortunate feeling that this would qualify as taijutsu and therefore make him fail the challenge. Instead, he relaxed and decided to see where this took him, while waiting for an opportunity to escape.

“You little snot,” the shopkeeper growled at him. “We’re taking you back to where you belong, and here’s hoping your uncle takes his time teaching you to respect your elders.”

The two men dragged a protesting Naruto off to a nearby inn, past an alarmed receptionist and upstairs to the door of a luxury suite.

A man who could only be Jiraiya opened it with a grin.

“I see you’ve found my wayward nephew. That’s great work, gentlemen. I knew I could count on you. Here’s the reward I promised.”

He handed over what looked like two small slips of paper, and beckoned for Naruto to come in. The kidnappers exchanged looks of delight at the acquisition and left the two ninja to it.

“Not a bad try, kid,” Jiraiya commented, “but next time you try to be subtle, maybe don’t open with the explosive tags?”

His voice seemed oddly familiar, but Naruto couldn’t quite place it.

“All right,” he reluctantly asked, “how’d you get me?”

“Simple,” Jiraiya said. “I went around telling people that I was with the Inveterate Liars travelling theatre troupe, and that I was practising being in character for the role of Jiraiya in our latest production of _The Leaf Three versus the Salamander of Doom_. You, my nephew, were going to be our bumbling sidekick, only you decided to run off and play a prank on your dear old uncle. Now, your uncle likes a prank as much as the next big kid, but things have gone too far when it ends up threatening a man’s livelihood. So the good folk of Shady Springs were all too happy to catch you for me before you could cause more trouble. Especially when I promised whoever brought you in a free three-course meal at the Torimi Cafe, which happens to be the fanciest and most expensive joint in town, and whose owner happens to be a big fan of my books.”

“But are you really OK with people thinking you’re just an actor playing Jiraiya, instead of the real thing?”

Jiraiya snorted. “Oh, _now_ you start worrying about my reputation? Well, don’t underestimate the great sage Jiraiya, kid. Once they’ve had a little time to forget about your prank, I’ll start a rumour that the guy going around pretending to be Jiraiya really _is_ Jiraiya in disguise, and then everyone will think they’re so clever for seeing through a real ninja’s deception.”

Naruto began to get the sense that he was in the presence of a master.

“So. Uh. Kakashi-sensei said you were going to help me train for the Finals. How much do you know about me and what I can do?”

“Everything, kid. Absolutely everything, from the thing you’ve got behind that seal of yours and how it got there, to how you’re so narcissistic you try to clone yourself as the solution to every problem, to what you had for lunch this afternoon. Which, by the way, garlic breath? Not the best way to make a first impression.

“But it’s getting late, so for tonight we’re just going to rest and relax, and have a nice dinner at the sushi place around the corner. Old Kimiko may have quite a temper on her, but she does a mean hosomaki.”

Naruto scowled. “But I’ve only got a month, minus the time it took to get here. Shouldn’t I be trying to cram as much training in as I can?”

Jiraiya gave him a thoughtful look. “Say, kid, did Sarutobi-sensei ever get around to telling you any stories about your parents?”

Naruto’s eyes went wide.

-o-

“And then Kushina says, ‘Dammit, Minato, if you think _you_ can do a better stir-fry with a half-melted mess kit in the pouring rain, you go ahead and do it!’ And Minato looks at her for about three seconds and then says, ‘Why not? Sounds like fun.’ So there they are, one mile from the Hidden Rock outpost, in a thunderstorm with gale-force winds, having a no-holds-barred cook-off, and Uchiha Shinji’s sitting there feeling sorry for himself and wondering how he got roped into being the judge. And then, wouldn’t you know it, there’s a lightning strike and all of a sudden—”

Jiraiya paused abruptly.

“What? What?”

Jiraiya yawned and stretched. “Sorry, kid, it’s time to go to bed. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Tell you what, though, impress me during training and I might tell you the rest, and how they ended up taking that outpost with nothing but three kunai, a captured owl, and a farmer’s rake with a light on the end.”

Grumbling to himself, Naruto turned in for the night.

-o-

“Excuse me. Are you Ebisu-sensei?” Sakura asked the special jōnin, looking at the sunglasses and bandana-shaped forehead protector that Kakashi-sensei had listed as his identifying features.

“Yes,” the ninja replied proudly in an unpleasant nasal voice. “Yes, I am. Can I help you?”

“My name is Haruno Sakura. Kakashi-sensei says that you are Leaf’s best general training instructor,” Ebisu-sensei preened slightly at this, “and he’s asked that you tutor me for the Chūnin Exam Finals.”

“Out of the question.” Sakura wasn’t sure how, but she could tell that the man was looking down his nose at her from behind his sunglasses. “I have been selected to be the personal trainer for the Hokage’s grandson, and I couldn’t possibly find the time to mentor some random genin on top of that.”

“Kakashi-sensei told me you’d say that,” Sakura smiled sweetly. “He said to tell you two things. First, that Konohamaru is an eight-year-old Academy student, and there’s nothing he’s ready to learn from you that he can’t learn from another teacher. And second, that Kakashi-sensei still has those sealed witness statements from the Kannabi Hot Springs Incident.”

“Well,” Ebisu-sensei’s manner changed instantly, “on reflection I’m sure I can rearrange a few things in order to fit you in.”

Then he fell silent, and simply stared at Sakura. Even through the glasses, she could sense his gaze slowly travelling over her body. It was creepy as hell. Then, to make it worse, he started slowly walking around her, examining her from all angles. Sakura didn’t know how, but she was so going to get Captain Unreasonable back for this.

Just when Sakura began thinking she should make her excuses and flee, Ebisu-sensei stopped in front of her.

“Well, the bad news is that the Academy instructors are as short-sighted and inept as ever. Your body is appallingly conditioned, your reflexes have been allowed to grow numb, and I would bet a year’s income that your chakra reserves are underdeveloped as well. I don’t even want to _think_ what your ninjutsu must be like.”

Sakura cringed, now more sure than ever that coming here had been a bad idea.

“The good news,” Ebisu-sensei’s voice rose, “is that I have accepted you as my personal student for the next four weeks. I guarantee that by the time I’m finished with you, you will either be dead or chūnin-level.”

Sakura was not entirely reassured.

-o-

He should have expected this from the man who invented the bell test, Sasuke reflected as he fled down the corridors of the region’s biggest bandit fortress, pursued by a dozen guards, unarmed, with his hands tied behind his back and dressed only in his underwear.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s 18/10/18, and the Lighting Up the Dark rewrite is now live! Writing style has been improved, new content has been added, and plot holes and awkward errors have been concea—completely fixed. This chapter is all-new, but I suggest you go back and read the whole thing starting with the prologue, or what did you spend all these years waiting for?
> 
> This rewritten version has benefited from extensive beta reading, commenting and general writerly helpfulness from bayesclef, EagleJarl, Nezumi, ThrawnCA and Vecht, as well as the Patreon support of Cariyaga, Connor Cone, Jello_Raptor, KaGoGoGadgetMe, MMKII, OliWhail, Oneiros, Saint, Spector29 and Vecht again. You people are great. To anyone else, if you feel you belong on this list and I’ve forgotten you, then you probably do and I probably have, so please get in touch so I can thank you properly.
> 
> From now on, Lighting Up the Dark will be hosted primarily on Sufficient Velocity at (<https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/lighting-up-the-dark.51004/>) due to its superior text editing and discussion tools, and mirrored on AO3 and fanfiction.net ([https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9311012/1/Lighting-Up-the-Dark](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9311012/1/Lighting-Up-the-Dark\))). FF eats some of my formatting, so consider it less canon than the others.

Trees so great that their overlapping crowns cast patches of the forest into eternal night. Boulders of every size, each one calling out as a test of strength. The sparkling Yamagawa River with its agile fish. And in the hillside, a network of caves said to be ideal for deep meditation. Naruto was normally inclined to take tourist brochures with a barrel of salt, but maybe Shugenja Forest really was the place the first acolytes of the Sage of Six Paths had chosen as their training ground as they learned to attune to the Five Elements for the first time in history. (Jiraiya had also noted, with a wink, that the area was home to luxurious hot springs even then, and many of the Sage’s early followers were formerly ascetic holy men.)

Unaware of Naruto’s grudge against all moving bodies of water (whether natural or ninjutsu-created), Jiraiya had brought him to the Yamagawa River’s banks for reasons of sealing safety. When experimenting with an unfamiliar seal in field conditions, he explained, there was nothing better than having a river on hand, since they could offer protection from fire, blunt the impact of missiles, and rapidly carry you away from airborne toxins. Naruto had asked what _he_ should do if his seal reacted badly to Jiraiya’s prodding, only to be told, “Try not to explode”.

So Naruto stood there holding up his undershirt, trying very hard not to explode while experiencing some of the weirdest sensations known to man, as if his body was a crucible within which impossible substances were competing over which could most radically violate the laws of chemistry.

“Not too shabby,” Jiraiya finally concluded. “Even after the stunt you pulled, the damage is confined to a single layer, _and_ it’s using modular regeneration. Never seen a seal do that before. As the guy who taught Minato how to make his first explosive tag, I’m feeling pretty good about myself right now.”

“Not too shabby,” Naruto repeated sceptically. “Isn’t it supposed to be the Perfect Seal?”

Jiraiya rolled his eyes. “Oh, and who told them it was perfect? Because it sure wasn’t Minato, on account of him being dead at the time. Kid, there’s no such thing as a perfect seal any more than there’s such a thing as a perfect woman, and as the world expert on both, I can tell you that _nobody_ really understands why they work the way they do. You can read a thousand theories, but in the end it all comes down to trial and error, and there’s only so much error you can take before you give up on the trial.”

“Uh…”

“Point is, Minato’s seal is great. Best demon seal I’ve seen in my life. Probably the best I’ve read about, though Sage knows we’ve lost more lore over the centuries than I’ve sold novels. But that doesn’t matter. You get complacent about the Demon Fox for one single second, and snap!”

Jiraiya abruptly slapped his hands together in front of Naruto’s face like a predator’s jaws.

“And I reckon you know what that would mean for you better than I ever could.”

Naruto gulped. “No complacency. Got it.”

“There’s more,” Jiraiya said. “Sure, the Fox wants to sink its fangs into your soul, tear you to pieces from the inside out and use the hollowed-out husk of your body to crush, kill and destroy everything you’ve ever loved. And Minato’s seal is going to keep doing a sterling job of keeping it muzzled as long as you’re not so pants-on-head crazy as to let it loose with your own hands. Again.”

“No pants on head. Got it.”

“But that doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. Did Sarutobi-sensei tell you about your mother, and how Kushina got to be the firebrand she was?”

“Yeah. He said her seal didn’t give her full protection, so she made herself as passionate and as direct as she could so the Fox didn’t have a chance to influence her thinking.”

“Right. But why did that work? Shouldn’t people be easier to manipulate when they’re all emotional?”

“Huh.” That made sense. A lot of sense, actually. Naruto had reflected on the Hokage’s story—over and over—and it had occurred to him that this kind of manipulation may well have been the trigger for the villagers’ hatred. In the immediate aftermath of the Night of Tragedy, everyone would have been hurting from the loss of their loved ones and their homes, and it must have made them very easy to influence. If Naruto’s Leaf nemeses had deliberately steered that distress in the worst possible direction, it would go some way towards answering the questions that Naruto had been wrestling with ever since he learned the truth about himself—questions like “How can anyone blame me for something that happened within an hour of my birth?” and “Why does everyone treat me as a monster when the other Demon Fox hosts are still heroes?”

But if that was the kind of devastating error that being dominated by your emotions could lead to...

“...then why did she do it?” Naruto asked out loud.

“I’m going to take the long way round to answering that,” Jiraiya said. “We’re about to head into the realm of metaphysical theory, so treat everything I’m about to say as a highly educated guess. There have always been scholars who studied the Demon Beasts, but for obvious reasons most of them did it from a very safe distance, ideally right across the continent. Hard to be an empiricist when your data sample brings madness and death to anybody who so much as looks at it.

“But despite their sense of self-preservation, they’ve been able to make a few observations over the centuries. When you’ve got nine Beasts and dozens of hosts to compare, you can begin to see trends.”

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that each Beast seems to have its own unique behaviour pattern, and so do its hosts.”

Naruto instinctively knew he mustn’t ask the question. It would be like deliberately sticking his mind into a fire. But he had to know.

“What’s the Demon Fox’s pattern?”

“ _Cold arrogance_.”

Naruto flinched. Even though there was no way he could have already known, the _rightness_ of it chilled him to the bone.

“If demon hosts’ reports are to be believed, which is its own can of worms, then the Fox is the only Beast that has never communicated with its host. Not because it can’t—or at least, the others sure can—but because we are that far beneath it. To the Fox, we aren’t intelligent beings that it needs to trick into carrying out its will. We’re kunai. Position, mass, velocity, done.

“And every Demon Beast imparts some of its nature to its host. More if the host is young or weak, less if the host has willpower and a strong sense of identity. That might sound less scary than having your Beast flat-out break the seal and consume you, but in some ways it’s even more dangerous.

“There’s a treatise by Nara Shikabane, written in that brief time after he left the clan to pursue his research but before the Hyūga started finding the empty villages. It’s a bit flowery for my tastes, but it gets the message across pretty well.”

Jiraiya’s voice took on an eerie, distant cadence.

“To be borne willingly into the abyss of heresy by the Eroding Flow, to be parted from fate and free will both by the Brilliant Wings, and to be transfixed and flensed of humanity by the Rainbow Gaze... next to these endings, is death not the lesser foe?”

Naruto didn’t have to ask which one referred to the Fox.

“Flensed of humanity?” he asked instead. “Is that like flaying? What does it mean?”

“Flensing doesn’t stop at the skin,” Jiraiya said. Naruto unthinkingly began to imagine what that might mean, then forcibly shut down that part of his brain.

“What happens is that the Demon Fox takes the host’s original self, the person they are and the person they could become, and carves it away, slice by slice, until all that is left is the stark skeleton of cold arrogance.

“Bit by bit, the Fox grants its host insight, subtly enough that they don’t realise it’s not their own until they’re too far gone to care. Naturally, they embrace it at first, for the power, or for the sense of superiority, or simply for its own sake. As the world they see gradually diverges from everyone else’s, it gets harder and harder to reach across the gap and reconnect with the people they’re leaving behind. But intelligence is addictive, and the alternative—trying to go back to being the oblivious idiot they were before—feels like dying.

“As their bonds with others weaken and fade away, they find themselves more and more alone. They have no one they can ask for help in times of emotional need, and they struggle to motivate themselves to protect a community that has stopped trying to understand them. Their sense of values shifts to prize their intellect, which is now their defining feature, over the things that once gave their life meaning. They start to forget why they cared about anything other than themselves in the first place, and there is nobody there who can remind them. Their world continues to diverge until they’re the only real person in it. Eventually, at the end of that road, all that is left is sociopathic calculation wearing a human skin. They become the Demon Fox in microcosm, drawing on the power of insight to manipulate and consume all around them, not caring about the malevolent will behind that insight as long as it keeps giving them what they want. The Fox doesn’t even need to take them over anymore, because it is already here.”

Cold arrogance. An intellect isolated from others, taking pleasure only in its own superiority and bound to others only by relationships of contempt. If Naruto hadn’t had Raijin, the only ninja compassionate enough to be trusted with the world’s most hated infant... If, after Raijin died on a mission or “died on a mission”, Naruto hadn’t had Sasuke... If he hadn’t had Old Man Hokage as a distant but unchanging presence in the background... If he hadn’t had Sakura, Kiba, Chōji, Teuchi, Ayame, Iruka-sensei... would the Perfect Seal have been perfect enough?

“Wait,” Naruto said slowly as the obvious implication hit him. “The Hokage admitted that somebody out there _wanted_ me to grow up alone. I already knew that whole plan was insanely stupid, but now you’re telling me they also chose to increase the risk of me getting corrupted by the Fox?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Jiraiya said. “You can have the symptoms without having the disease, and alienation is a very common symptom where demon hosts are concerned. Still… you were monitored at first. You had a shinobi guardian for the first few years of your life, and they reported that you were growing up like an ordinary bright kid, no more and no less than what you’d expect from Minato and Kushina’s son. Then, of course, you entered the Academy, and instantly blew away any concerns that the Demon Fox might be raising your intelligence.”

Naruto had a sense that something was missing from that story, but right now his mind was occupied by a more important realisation. His idiot persona at the Academy… that was exactly how you’d want someone to act if your objective was to slowly feed them insight without anyone catching on.

But that had to be a coincidence, didn’t it? He’d had perfectly logical and legitimate reasons for acting that way, ones grounded in other people’s behaviour rather than anything the Fox could control. Besides, his pariah status had been the product of other people’s prejudice, not his personal inability to connect with people.

Though maybe if he’d been better at making friends…

“You said before that my mother found a way to keep free of the Demon Fox’s influence?” Naruto asked with a trace of urgency. “So how did that work, exactly? And what about the host before her?”

“How did they resist cold arrogance?” Jiraiya asked rhetorically. “By living lives that were the complete opposite of the Fox’s nature.

“Kushina refused to be cold,” he went on. “She once told me she’d rather die than let someone else dictate who she was. With that resolve, she invested all of her feelings into everything she did and every bond she had, even though it meant getting hurt over and over again. It gave her an emotional life so rich and intense that anything her power could give her became just a drop in the ocean of who she was.

“Lady Mito refused to be arrogant. She wove herself a web of loving relationships so strong that she couldn’t take a breath without being reminded who she was fighting for and why. If she ever felt vulnerable or weak, she could knock on any door and find people ready to support her.”

A nostalgic smile found its way onto Jiraiya’s face as he gazed somewhere into the distance.

After a few seconds, he looked at Naruto again, the smile dissolving into his usual jovial expression like a rainbow into a clear but ordinary sky.

“I won’t deny that Minato’s seal is the bee’s knees. Sealing a Demon Beast into a newborn with no ego to speak of should have been a desperation move, and he turned it into a hands-down victory. The fact that in all this time the Fox never once broke through until you gave it the keys to the kingdom is nothing short of incredible. Your dad must have had one hell of a teacher.”

Jiraiya voice turned serious again.

“That’s the end of the good news. I’ve seen your personality profile—the updated version—and I’ve seen _you_ , and I think we can both agree that you’re not out of the woods yet.”

Naruto wasn’t about to argue. How many times in the past week alone had he got in trouble by trying to show off his intelligence, or underestimating that of others? How many times had he been reminded of the cost of overlooking other people’s feelings? He didn’t think he was in danger of becoming a monster just from that, but what if cold arrogance was like alcoholism, and it took only a little backsliding to find yourself back in the trap it had taken you years to get out of? It might feel like a lifetime now, but it was only a few years ago that Naruto had been a handful of people away from giving up on human relationships altogether.

Part of him wanted to ask Jiraiya for advice, but the rest was finally waking up and realising the dangers of baring his soul to some adult he’d only met yesterday. Jiraiya had vast depths of knowledge that Naruto needed, and he had the kind of roguish mentor vibe that made him easy to relax around, as well as making Naruto suspect that an invitation to peep on girls in the hot springs was only a matter of time. He was also the man who’d chosen to be elsewhere when his beloved apprentice’s first child was being born, even knowing in advance that the village would be vulnerable that night.

Unless he _had_ been there, of course. Somebody had known in advance that Uzumaki Kushina was due to give birth. Somebody had known enough about demon hosts to know she would be vulnerable, and enough about sealing to take advantage of the opportunity. Somebody had known how to penetrate the village’s defences. Somebody had been confident of their ability to face Namikaze Minato and get away unharmed.

And a powerful ninja who ticked all the boxes hadn’t taken any interest in his apprentice’s orphaned child until that child manifested the Demon Fox’s power.

It wasn’t proof. In and of itself, it was barely evidence. But Naruto knew his classics, and he knew that by the time you had proof that your friendly, mischievous senior was actually the cold-blooded murderer whose identity you’d been seeking all along, it was usually too late.

At the same time, the Hokage and Kakashi-sensei had access to all the same information Naruto did and more, and they’d chosen to trust Jiraiya. If he was going to work on not underestimating other people’s intelligence, this was as good a place to start as any.

To make things more complicated, Naruto _wanted_ to trust Jiraiya. No, on some level he’d already trusted him from the moment they met, which was as un-Naruto-like as you could get (and yes, Naruto had checked for genjutsu behind Jiraiya’s back). It was like his mind was saying no but his heart was saying yes—oh, cold hell, that sounded exactly like a line from one of Kakashi-sensei’s perverted novels. Apparently, even short-term exposure to Jiraiya could lead to contamination.

Let’s just pretend that never happened and move on.

What it came down to, appalling romance clichés aside, was that something about Jiraiya was apparently capable of bypassing Naruto’s finely-honed anti-authority-figure defensive mechanisms, and that made him doubly dangerous. If the self-styled sage wanted to actually _earn_ Naruto’s trust, it would take more than a charming grin and a few thrilling but unverifiable tales about Naruto’s parents.

“I think I can figure this one out myself,” Naruto said guardedly. “I have to develop stronger bonds with people like Lady Mito did, and I have to stop thinking I’m cleverer than everyone else.”

No, that didn’t sound quite right.

“Even supposing I _am_ cleverer than everyone else, that doesn’t make me better than them.”

 No, that still wasn’t it.

“Even supposing I _am_ cleverer than everyone else, intelligence isn’t the only virtue worth respecting people for.”

Perfect.

For some reason, Jiraiya was giving him an “oh, really” look.

“Ah, whatever,” he said after a second. “It’ll do for now. Sage knows I was twice as dumb when I was your age, and I grew up all right.”

It was the perfect opening for a snarky comment, but Naruto didn’t feel up to it right now.

“Listen, kid,” Jiraiya said. “I’ve got one more thing to say to you, and then the subject’s closed. If you feel like you’re losing the fight, don’t try to handle it all on your own. Classic rookie mistake, and you don’t have room for rookie mistakes. You need help dealing with the Fox, you go straight to the Hokage. He’s not a badass sealing expert like I am, but he’s good enough, and he’s a brilliant man with access to some of the world’s best resources. If he’s not available, you come find me. I may not be Sarutobi-sensei, but one of the perks of not being Hokage is that you have a lot more time to indulge your interests, which in my case happen to include sealing lore. Also, I know Minato’s work like the back of my hand. And if I’m not available…”

For a brief moment, Jiraiya’s mouth tightened in a small, probably unconscious grimace.

“If I’m not available, and the Hokage’s not available, and you think you’re in real, urgent danger, you go to a man named Orochimaru. He’s not based in the Fire Country, but if you make it known that you’re looking for him, he’ll come find you. But he’s the absolute last resort. If you make that journey, know that you won’t be coming back, at least not as Uzumaki Naruto. The only reason I’m giving you his name anyway is that when the shit hits the fan, he’s the one person I trust not to be tempted by a Demon Beast’s power.

“All right, conversation over. How about we have some fun instead of dwelling on you being eaten by monsters?”

“Yes, please,” Naruto said emphatically.

“It’s time for you to learn some of that ninjutsu Kakashi promised you. I know you think you’re hot stuff with all your shadow clones, but you’ll never be popular with the ladies if you can’t show them a little variety when push comes to shove.”

Jiraiya leaned in towards Naruto with his hand over his mouth as if confiding a great secret. “Though let me tell you, they go _wild_ when they find out what the Shadow Clone Technique can really do.”

“I did not need to know that,” Naruto said, though in his head he was already trying to figure out what Jiraiya meant, and whether he could find a way to apply it to the Uzumaki Style. “And besides, I have a girlfriend.”

Somehow, the mix of Jiraiya’s suddenly playful tone and the reminder of Hinata waiting for him at home were just what he needed to start shrugging off the gloom.

“Oh, yeah,” Jiraiya said, “the Hyūga heir. I know you’ve got issues, kid, but I didn’t figure you for the suicidal type.”

“Actually,” Naruto said smugly, “Hyūga Hiashi and I have an understanding.”

“Uh-huh. And by ‘understanding’, do you mean ‘I shall deign to show you mercy, lowly peasant, until the moment you inevitably disappoint me’?”

“Let’s not get sidetracked,” Naruto said quickly. “You promised me ninjutsu?”

“I sure did.” Jiraiya grinned.

“You will observe,” he said, presenting the palm of his right hand with a flourish, “that there is nothing up my sleeve.”

Instead of transitioning into hand seals, he began to make rapid thrusting gestures over it with his other hand. Over a couple of seconds, a small storm of chakra tore itself into existence over his palm. It was a perfect sphere of intense, visible chakra, bright lines and streams intertwining in an endlessly shifting pattern. But what really got Naruto's attention was the space between those streams, distorted as if the air inside was being reflected in shattered glass inside a kaleidoscope. It made Naruto's head hurt trying to follow the countless permutations.

“This,” Jiraiya said dramatically, “is the Rasengan, your father’s legacy.”

“My father’s legacy?”

“Minato invented this technique, the ultimate melee ninjutsu. Even as an incomplete technique, it blows Kakashi’s Lightning Cutter out of the water for firepower and chakra efficiency, and Maito Gai would have to put himself in hospital to beat it with taijutsu.”

Naruto didn’t know what any of that meant, but he instantly homed in on one of his least favourite words. He scowled.

“Why would you want to teach me an incomplete technique?”

“Because it works,” Jiraiya said simply. “The only reason it’s incomplete is that Minato had an even greater vision for it, some kind of S-rank ninjutsu that would have been written into legend alongside the Flying Thunder God Technique if he’d only had a chance to complete it. Hell, maybe you’ll be the one to figure it out and finish his work someday.”

Naruto watched the sphere as the air within—or perhaps space itself—twisted and warped in the iron grip of Jiraiya’s will. His father’s legacy, a unique ultimate technique with a special secret only he could discover…

“What else have you got?”

Jiraiya froze. The Rasengan vanished as if shocked out of existence.

“What did you just say?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Naruto said, “obviously I want to learn my dad’s special technique and everything, but maybe we can save that for another time, like after the exam? I don’t have much use for a technique that’s only good for one thing.”

Jiraiya sighed as if, despite his expression of surprise, part of him had seen this coming all along.

“Follow me, kid. I think it’s time for an object lesson.”

-o-

“One hundred and sixteen,” Sakura grunted, her knuckles digging into the ground as she completed another press-up. “Ebisu-sensei, could you explain to me again how—one hundred and seventeen—primitive physical exercise is going to catch me up— one hundred and eighteen—to genin who can throw fireballs— one hundred and nineteen—and block shuriken with their mind? One hundred and twenty. Ideally before I collapse? One hundred and twenty one.”

She could hear the special jōnin turn another couple of pages of _Telescope Buyers’ Monthly_ before he replied.

“Sakura, tell me about the three types of chakra.”

“One hundred and twenty nine. Chakra has two components: physical chakra— one hundred and thirty—which comes from bodily vitality— one hundred and thirty one—and spiritual chakra— one hundred and thirty two—which comes from inner strength gained from experience. One hundred and thirty three. Melding the two types of chakra— one hundred and thirty four—creates human chakra which allows the spiritual to affect the physical. One hundred and thirty five.”

“Quite,” Ebisu-sensei said. “Now, stressing your body to its exact limits strengthens a variety of important muscles and builds vitality, which improves physical chakra. Refusing to give up in the face of pain and following even the most demanding orders to the letter builds willpower and improves spiritual chakra. Finally, the fact that you are an unfit twelve-year-old girl who can’t even muster the concentration to take advantage of your chakra control, the only thing you have going for you, forces you to draw deeper on your unconscious resources, refining your natural chakra flow and teaching your body to bypass the many limitations of your underdeveloped mind.”

Sakura suppressed a growl. There was only one thing keeping her going at this moment: Ebisu-sensei’s promise that if she was still conscious at the end of the morning exercises, the afternoon would feature _sparring training_. The thought filled her with a fierce, murderous joy as Ebisu-sensei shifted his sitting position in mid-press-up and the altered weight distribution nearly ploughed her nose into the ground.

-o-

“This will do,” Jiraiya said as he studied a wide clearing with a critical eye.

Then, with no warning whatsoever, he bit his thumb hard enough to draw blood and slammed it down onto the grass.

“Summoning Technique!”

A spider web of complex black symbols, resembling nothing so much as the Perfect Seal, spread outwards from the point of contact. It was all very striking and impressive, but also, a little voice in the back of Naruto’s mind noted, extremely unhygienic.

There was a familiar puff of smoke.

The next thing he knew, he was facing a toad the size of a house, wearing a yakuza-style haori and dagger belt, and with a pipe in its mouth.

“Whaah?!”

“Thanks for coming, ’Bunta,” Jiraiya told the toad as casually as if he was having a friend over for lunch rather than facing an amphibian titan that could squash him flat on a whim.

“Well, Jiraiya,” the toad asked in a gravelly but perfectly comprehensible voice, “who’re we fighting today? If those Hidden Rock weasels are up to their old tricks, I’ve half a mind to bring their little burrow down on them once and for all.”

“Time out!” Naruto interrupted. “I know I’ve seen Kakashi-sensei summon ninja dogs before, but there are ninja dogs and then there’s this. Why do we bother with explosive tags and shadow clones when people can summon talking yakuza toads capable of wiping out an entire village?”

Jiraiya chuckled at his reaction. “I’m not going to go into summoning theory today, kid, but the long and the short of it is that contracts are rare, the technique has some harsh limitations, the chakra costs are a killer, and the summons don’t charge cheap for their services either. Also, Gamabunta here isn’t _really_ a giant toad who happens to speak our language and share our cultural background. That would be ridiculous.”

“What is he, then?”

“Ahem,” the toad said in what was probably intended to be a subtle interjection but came out sounding like a small localised earthquake.

“Sorry,” Jiraiya said. “That was rude of me. Naruto, this is Gamabunta, Boss of the Toad Clan.”

“Hrrrrmm,” Gamabunta rumbled meaningfully.

“Yes, he also has a bunch of other very impressive titles, but he’s going to let me omit those for today because they take a while to list and he’s not so petty as to make an effort to impress a human twelve-year-old.”

Naruto had no idea how to read the facial expressions of a giant toad, but he was pretty sure the creature was giving Jiraiya a disparaging stare.

“Gamabunta, this is Uzumaki Naruto. Minato’s kid, if you’ll believe it.”

“Hrrrm,” Gamabunta rumbled with more interest. “How the mighty have fallen.”

“Now don’t write him off just yet, ’Bunta,” Jiraiya grinned. “He may be scrawny and disrespectful, but he’s got the great sage Jiraiya teaching him, and Sage knows I’ve pulled off bigger miracles.”

The toad gave a noise like a distant avalanche, which may have been its equivalent of an amused snort. “That’s as may be. Why have you summoned me today?”

Jiraiya gave an ominous grin. “Kid here needs the same lesson you gave Minato back in the day.”

Gamabunta looked down at Naruto. “Oh, is that how it is? Well, listen close, tadpole. If you can banish me, here and now, without help, then Jiraiya’s going to pay for all the…” it gave Jiraiya a questioning look.

“Ramen,” Jiraiya said helpfully.

“That was it. All the rau-men you can eat for the rest of your training. You can’t kill a summon for good outside its home path, so don’t hold back if you want to have a chance. But if you can’t beat me, then you’re going to pipe down and learn whatever Jiraiya’s got to teach, and be grateful for the privilege. Agreed?”

“Fine with me,” Naruto said.

Jiraiya found himself a comfortable position on top of a nearby boulder. “Summons are like shadow clones, kid. They’ve got all the power of the original, but one strong enough hit will pop them. That’s one of those limitations I was talking about earlier. Now off you go.”

“One strong enough hit. Got it.

“Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

This shouldn’t be too hard. The toad’s skin looked warty and tough, but Naruto had plenty of experience making a suitable weapon now, and he could hardly miss a target that big. At a signal from him, the First (ever) Phalanx of the Worldwide Uzumaki Naruto Coalition sprang into action, half the clones turning into spears for the rest to wield even as they ran.

“Hrrmmm.”

A foreleg swept across the toad’s flank like a moving wall, wiping out all of the clones in a single motion.

“D minus,” Jiraiya commented cheerfully from atop the boulder. “Must try harder.”

Naruto ignored him. His memories showed that a few of the clones had had the presence of mind to turn their spears on the leg as it approached, and it had done them no good. Spears weren’t going to do the job, at least not with Naruto’s strength behind them.

“Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

Naruto really didn’t want to use up his explosive tags, but when it came down to it, they had the most stopping power of anything in his arsenal.

“Go for the soft underbelly!” he shouted.

The clones, following the plan he’d devised before creating them, promptly cast a hail of explosive-tag-carrying kunai at Gamabunta’s eyes. Unfortunately, since clone explosives couldn’t detonate, Naruto had to physically take part in the attack this time, mixing his own real tags among the rest.

“Water Element: Water Bullet Technique!”

A humongous globe of water, far bigger than any of the water bullets Naruto had seen before, obliterated the barrage of explosive tags before smashing into the ground with a blast that wiped out every clone not fast enough to get out of the way.

What.

It could use ninjutsu. This toad the size of a house which could wipe out a platoon of clones single-footed could use ninjutsu. That just wasn’t _fair_.

Naruto was starting to hate the Water Bullet Technique almost as much as genjutsu. Worse, reflecting on this one’s horrifying size, it occurred to him that the toad must have deliberately aimed it away from the real Naruto—otherwise, based on that crater, he wouldn’t have been able to make it far enough to get out of the blast radius. It made him grit his teeth in anger.

He should not have to rely on his opponent’s mercy to win. Was Gamabunta now going to quote some work of great toadly wisdom at him, then hand him the victory because it was _expedient_?

Naruto wouldn’t allow it.

“Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!”

The clones assembled in a huddle. With their backs blocking Gamabunta’s view, Naruto handed out the last of his precious explosive tags.

Kunai wouldn’t be enough. Every clone clutched his tag, timer already active, and charged.

But this time Naruto was playing it smart. Different tags had different timers. Some clones went straight. Others took the long way round. A few bounced off trees to gain height and come in from above. Gamabunta wouldn’t be able to block them all with its legs, and even if it did, at least one of those timers would run down at the right time to blast the blocking limb. This kind of complex multi-angled assault was how the Shadow Clone Technique was meant to be used.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

The first clone reached out to plant his smouldering tag on Gamabunta’s side.

Gamabunta _leapt_.

“Oh, crap,” went a dozen clones as they watched the giant toad disappear into the depths of the sky.

Then, in an unbroken consecutive chain like the climax of a firework display, every last one of them exploded as the timers ran out.

Before Naruto could recover from the shock of his own stupidity (the giant toad was a _giant toad_!) and formulate a Plan D, a bigger and much more physical impact knocked him off his feet. Gamabunta had landed.

With Naruto’s mind whirling into outraged and humiliated overdrive, Plan D was finalised by the time he picked himself up.

“Multiple Shadow Clone—”

A tongue like a red carpet whipped out and wrapped around Naruto, crushing his arms to his sides. Before he could react, he found himself somewhere very dark… and very wet.

“Mmmmf!”

After a few seconds of making its point, Gamabunta spat Naruto out on the ground, still covered in giant toad saliva.

“I nearly had you!” Naruto exclaimed after wiping the worst of it off his face (and onto his sleeves). “Just one more try!”

Jiraiya hopped down off the boulder. “Kid, you already got two more tries than you would in a real fight.”

And he had. The anger drained out of Naruto as he realised he’d done it _again_. He’d focused so hard on winning that he’d overlooked the obvious—not the jumping thing, but the fact that he’d been baited into fighting a clan boss, implicitly the strongest summon of its kind, and a warrior powerful enough to fight alongside Jiraiya of the Three. Also, you know, a toad the size of a house.

Was this another thing to add to the cold arrogance prevention list?

“You win,” Naruto muttered. “That was stupid of me.”

“The point of this isn’t to beat yourself up,” Jiraiya said. “That’s Gamabunta’s job.”

Naruto glared.

“Sorry, couldn’t resist. Seriously, though, if Gamabunta were to go all out, I wouldn’t want to be the jōnin trying to keep up with him. For a genin, you did just fine. But you get how differently that fight could have gone if you’d had a technique designed specifically for doing damage?”

Naruto nodded.

“What you need to take away from this is that brute force is not bad. It’s not boring. It’s not a sign that you lack imagination. Using brute force to win a battle is like telling a woman straight-out that you want to jump her bones. A lot of the time it’s the wrong tool for the job, and if you make it your default approach you’re in for a world of hurt, but every now and again, it’ll score you a victory where nothing else can.”

Naruto gave him a look. “Did I mention the part where I don’t need advice on picking up girls?”

“Trust me, kid, it won’t be too long before your teenage hormones kick in, and then you’ll be begging at my feet for these pearls of wisdom. Now thank Gamabunta for his time so we can go chuck you in the river. You’ll need to be clean before we can get started on your punishment for failing the test.”

“What punishment?” Naruto asked anxiously.

Jiraiya gave an evil grin and held it until Naruto began to squirm.

“You’re going to have to learn one of the most powerful ninjutsu in the world.”


	28. Chapter 28

“I’m so close!” Naruto threw his once-again-empty hands up in the air. “What am I missing?”

“Let me talk you through the process again,” Jiraiya said. “First, you have to hold the image of your desire in your mind. While doing that, you manipulate your chakra until you have something solid in your hand, and keep going until it’s as hard as you can get it. Make sure your thrusting motions are vigorous enough, or you won’t get anywhere. After that comes the really important part, which is keeping it up until the end—the last thing you want is to release the energy from your spheres too early and lose all your penetrating power.”

Naruto focused once again. He could do this. He knew it must be physically possible. After all, if his father hadn't managed it, he wouldn't be here.

“Relax and take a breath, kid,” Jiraiya said after watching yet another attempt fizzle out. “This kind of thing can happen to anyone, especially if they’re stressed and inexperienced.”

But after another couple of minutes of Naruto practising his thrusting motions, the self-proclaimed great sage jumped up.

“Damn damn damn! I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. Of course it’s not working as it should. Why would it? You’re only twelve years old!”

“Hey!” Naruto objected. “You _know_ how advanced I am for my age.”

“This isn’t a matter of being advanced or not. If your body isn’t ready, it isn’t ready.”

“What do you mean?”

“This technique is designed for jōnin, who already have top-tier chakra control and still have to pump a bunch of chakra into it in order to make it work. Of course a twelve-year-old genin can’t pull it off, especially with _your_ chakra reserves.”

Naruto scowled. “Hey, what do you mean, _my_ chakra reserves? Am I or am I not this year’s most promising genin, who blazed his way through to the Chūnin Exam Finals on his first try?”

“Which you did by spamming the Shadow Clone Technique until you made Gai’s apprentice look like a generalist.”

“Well, duh. Not using it would be like, I dunno, Kakashi-sensei not using those canine summon combos that nearly killed Zabuza while I was fighting Haku.”

Jiraiya snorted. “Like he’d ever give up his best counter to Gai’s tortoises. But you’re only proving my point. Kakashi uses his dogs as part of a ninjutsu arsenal that would put some clans to shame. You use shadow clones as… well, gee, I guess that’s it.”

“So what?”

“So what does the technique do to your chakra?”

“It divides it up.”

“Exactly,” Jiraiya pointed his finger at Naruto accusingly. “It doesn’t drain it—at least not much, with your chakra control—it divides it up. And then you get it back. When’s the last time you ran out of chakra?”

“Running out of chakra is for suckers,” Naruto said, but he couldn’t put much conviction behind it.

“Sure is. But _almost_ running out of chakra is how you join the ranks of the shinobi elite. Half of how I got to be the world’s greatest ninjutsu master is that I always had a use for my remaining chakra come night-time, if you know what I mean.”

"But how much chakra could a sleep-improving ninjutsu possibly cost?"

"Depends on how many people you're sleeping with, kid, and how creative you're prepared to get."

Jiraiya hadn't struck Naruto as the pyjama party type, but then again, he had to be picking all those girls up for _something_.

“But forget me for a second. Your problem is that you coast so well on chakra control that your body never feels that desperate need to deepen its reserves. It’s like copying another ninja in Academy tests. Sure, you get what you want, but it’s their brain that gets better at learning and applying information, not yours. The more you do it, the dumber you’ll be when you graduate— _if_ you graduate.

“Hell, I reckon you must have the lowest chakra reserves in your year. Your Uchiha friend’s going to die laughing the first time he scans you with that Sharingan of his.”

It was like having a bucket of cold water poured over him.

Sasuke had never looked at Naruto with the Sharingan except in combat, when Naruto’s chakra was divided between a bunch of clones and Sasuke hardly had the spare attention to add it up and calculate Naruto’s total. What would he think when he found out?

Sasuke had already mastered multiple C-rank techniques before graduation. How hard must he have worked to build the chakra reserves to pay for his advanced ninjutsu, while Naruto, relying on his incredible chakra control, hadn’t bothered?

But Naruto should at least be doing better than Sakura. Her reserves were notoriously low, so she couldn’t have been training them that seriously. After all, if she’d even got them to average, then her superior mental skills would have put her miles ahead of Ino where Academy ninjutsu was concerned, instead of a slim lead that occasionally got reversed as Ino pushed herself to catch up.

Then again, if you flipped that thought upside down…

Sakura, despite her naturally poor chakra reserves, was making the heir of a ninjutsu specialist clan struggle to keep up. On reflection, Naruto would eat his hat (or somebody else’s hat, anyway—he didn’t have so many clothes that he could waste them for the sake of an idiom) if Sakura hadn’t trained at _something_ like a demon in order to seize and maintain that advantage.

None of this was to say that Naruto himself didn’t dedicate time and effort to training, because he did. But he was a genius who grew fast even when he took the path of least resistance. Developing the Uzumaki Style was fun. Taijutsu practice was fun, since it mainly involved pranking people until they tried to kill him, or messing with Sasuke, or training with shadow clones and stopping whenever he got bored (the clones _could_ train on their own, but the memory transfer process was less efficient than he’d hoped, and besides, they got bored just as easily as he did). Clone AI hadn’t exactly been _fun_ , but it had been an intellectual challenge that he’d chosen for himself, and one that had been giving him something he couldn’t get anywhere else.

Whereas Sakura... suddenly he saw her anew. On some level, he’d always dismissed her as bright but ordinary, acknowledging her high academic performance but unimpressed with everything else. A teammate who was, if not a dead weight, at least not good enough to make an equal contribution. All of that was still true. And yet.

Everyone in Teams Asuma and Kurenai had been receiving special clan training since they were born. Sasuke was (inaccurately) considered by some to be the most talented genin of his generation. Naruto had proved his cunning, courage and combat skill by defeating a traitorous chūnin in one-on-one mortal combat. And Sakura... had earned a place on one of the three jōnin-led elite teams just by being smart and hard-working.

Apparently, he’d been more right than he knew. Even if Naruto was cleverer than everyone else, intelligence wasn’t the only virtue worth respecting people for.

“Teach me,” he said urgently to Jiraiya. “Tell me what I need to do to beat them at their own game.”

“Finally,” Jiraiya said. “This is the part where I get to stand over you while you meditate, and hit you with a stick whenever I see you getting distracted.”

“Wait, people actually do that?”

“Only metaphorically. But believe me, as a veteran writer, I can get a lot of mileage out of a metaphor.”

Jiraiya gave one of the most evil grins Naruto had ever seen, though admittedly it wasn’t possible to see Kakashi-sensei grinning.

“First things first, though,” Jiraiya said, “I need to start figuring out what I want you to spend your miserably limited chakra _on_. How about we test your elemental affinity and go from there? Elemental ninjutsu is designed to make the most of the element’s natural properties, so pound for pound it’s more chakra-efficient than neutral techniques like the Rasengan. And believe me, kid, you’re going to need all the chakra efficiency you can get.”

For once, Naruto didn’t rise to the bait. “So how do you test an elemental affinity?”

Jiraiya fished around in his pockets. “Chakra paper. Supposedly the Second discovered it by accident during his research. Worthless for sealing work, perfect for what we want.”

“And you just randomly carry that kind of thing around because…?”

“Kid,” Jiraiya smirked, “You’re never going to be the ultimate lover if you aren’t prepared for _everything_. There’s a reason why, in some circles, they call me the Pack Capybara.”

“That has to be the stupidest nickname I’ve ever heard.”

“That’s all right, I just made it up on the spot anyway. Now give me your hands, palms up. Both hands, on the off-chance you’re a double type.”

Naruto obediently stretched out his hands, and Jiraiya dropped a square of paper into each.

Naruto couldn’t feel anything except maybe a slight tingle, but the chakra paper in his right hand suddenly developed three sharp vertical tears as if assaulted by the world’s smallest kamaitachi.

Jiraiya nodded as if not particularly surprised. “Wind, huh? That one’s pretty rare. Good for ranged attacks, which you can’t afford, and deflection, which you don’t need because your clones are expendable.”

“Joy of joys,” Naruto said flatly.

“Now, what’ve we got—“

Naruto got a brief glimpse of black ink before Jiraiya snatched the second piece of paper away and stuffed it into a pocket.

“What element was that?”

“Faulty Paper Element,” Jiraiya said. “You don’t want to hold onto one of those—with your reserves, random chakra drain could really mess you up.”

What were the odds that Jiraiya would just happen to draw a faulty piece of paper when testing Naruto?

Based on precedent, pretty high. It was surprising how often there was exactly one piece of broken or dangerously malfunctioning equipment when the Academy instructors were handing them out, and it would invariably be Naruto who got it. Besides, what would Jiraiya be hiding from him? That on a deep metaphysical level, Naruto was made of ink?

“But forget that,” Jiraiya said. “We’ve already got what we need. The good news is, Wind affinity’s on the easy side; consider yourself lucky it wasn’t Lightning. First thing we’ll need to do, obviously, is to go peeping on girls in the hot springs.”

“Obviously.”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that,” Jiraiya said. “Have you never heard of the art of wind and water?”

“You mean that thing that’s supposed to let civilians control the ambient chakra in their home? I’ve had the worst education of any genin in history, and even I know that’s a load of crap.”

Jiraiya shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

“It really wasn’t. And seriously, trying to get me to peep on girls on our first day of training? Has anyone told you that you’re a complete and utter pervert?”

“Of course,” Jiraiya said, crossing his arms with pride. “But then I’m many things, kid. Including but not limited to war hero, expert lover, bestselling writer, supreme pervert and mighty sage. In parts of the world where they get how important sages are, they treat me with respect and call me ‘Enlightened One’, you know.”

How Naruto had waited for this moment. A man who insisted on calling him “kid” was begging for a counter-nickname, but “old man” was already taken by the Hokage, and besides, anyone who could match Naruto snark for snark deserved something special. Now, inspiration had finally struck.

Naruto sank to the ground in the humblest of bows, his forehead touching the grass. “I beg of you to forgive me. I was unaware of your greatness, Perverted One.”

“Hey, quit it, kid, that’s not funny.”

“I heed your words with reverence, Perverted One.”

“All right, maybe it is a little funny. But quit it anyway.”

“Your wish is my command, Perverted One.” 

-o-

  

“You summoned me, my lord?”

“It is time,” Lord Hiashi said to Neji, “for us to speak of your actions during the Chūnin Exam... and their consequences.”

Judgement Day was here. The only mercy offered him was that it had come quickly. Neji suppressed the trembling in his limbs. Lord Hiashi would, of course, perceive it anyway, but to willingly show weakness would only shame himself more than he had already.

“My daughter described your performance against her, sparing no detail.”

Of course she had. Lady Hinata was beyond deception. He had known this when he chose to use the Eight Trigrams—knowing the price he might pay whether he won or lost. As a member of the branch family, he walked alongside death every day. It would be a lie to say he didn’t fear it, but at least it couldn’t come as a surprise. Part of him had been _happy_ that his death would be for her, rather than on some random mission as most shinobi died.

“Tell me, Neji,” Lord Hiashi’s gaze became more piercing than any Gentle Fist strike, “did you restrain yourself for her sake during that battle? Did you permit her a victory she had not earned?”

What a strange question. As if Neji would use a technique that was about to cost him his life if he intended to lose anyway.

“No, my lord. I swear I did my very best to defeat her.”

Lord Hiashi nodded with an approval that had no place in this conversation. “As it should be. The pride of the Hyūga is not such a shallow thing as to be shaken by base sentiment.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Neji had spent his life dedicating himself to that pride in the face of every challenge, whether it meant enduring the cruel joke that was Rock Lee or protecting Lady Hinata from filthy worms that would exploit her innocence. It gave him a small measure of satisfaction that he would die as he had lived.

“To my knowledge,” Lord Hiashi said coolly, “very few have successfully deceived me since I first mastered the arts demanded of a Hyūga heir. My daughter is not among their number.”

Then... she had tried. For the likes of him, she had tried to defy her very nature. Neither in this world, nor in any other, could there be a second Lady Hinata.

She had tried.

Lord Hiashi’s voice turned grave. “There is but one punishment for those who would invoke the Eight Trigrams without the blessing of the First Hyūga—the blessing that flows through my family’s veins, and flowed through your ancestors’ until they chose to betray it. And now, to layer iniquity upon iniquity, as if to walk directly in their footsteps, you dare to turn the Trigrams’ power against the Hyūga heir.”

No! If there was one thing Neji wanted understood, it was that he’d committed his crime out of loyalty. If not to the totality of the Hyūga Clan, then to Lady Hinata.

“My lord, I never—”

“Silence.”

Lord Hiashi did not need to raise his voice to control the conversation. In a sense, control was what he _was_.

“Your fate has been determined. Your opinions are of no interest to me.”

Neji bowed in apology. A Hyūga died with pride, but also with grace.

But he couldn’t have predicted Lord Hiashi’s next words if he’d lived as long as the sun.

“You will dedicate your every effort to preparing her for the Finals. You will live every hour of the day for her, resting only when she rests, eating only when she eats, sleeping only when she sleeps. You will teach my daughter _everything_ you know that may aid her in the coming trials. Whatever miracle you accomplished to draw forth her potential, you will repeat it as many times as it takes.”

The ground disappeared from beneath Neji’s feet. Only the pride of the Hyūga kept him standing upright.

“My lord…” He knew all the reasons why he mustn’t ask the question, but he couldn’t help it.

“ _Why_?”

Lord Hiashi contemplated him for a while. Strength began to return to Neji’s legs.

“Because it is not duty that impels the Hyūga to seek the sun beyond. And because in her twelve years of life, my daughter has sought to deceive me exactly twice.”

The words explained nothing, but their inflection told him that he had been privileged to hear even that much, and was now dismissed.

As he bowed and left, he felt as if he was walking through another world. Him, Lady Hinata’s tutor? There was no question that he was fit for the role—he knew techniques she didn’t, and was without doubt a better ninja in every conceivable way—but hardly so to the same extent than any of the jōnin, or for that matter, he thought with a touch of bitterness, any of the chūnin that Lord Hiashi had at his command. Had it not been Lord Hiashi’s decision, he would have thought it mad.

It was a second chance that he could not have imagined, and did not deserve. But a second chance to do what? Even with her strange new power, the most Lady Hinata had managed was a draw, or something close enough to make no difference. She had been left lying in a hospital bed, the winner fallen alongside the loser. Was he to accept defeat with that ambiguous result, to resign himself to helping her further along the path of blood and darkness that was shinobi life? To allow her purity to get her killed in a world that did not forgive weakness, all in pursuit of her impossible dream?

Or perhaps… it felt like stabbing himself with a knife to so much as think it, but as Lady Hinata’s tutor, he could steer her awry. There were a thousand ways to sabotage her, from incorrect teaching to training accidents, a thousand ways to cause a failure at the Finals that would prove to everyone her earlier success was just a fluke. Lord Hiashi would not forgive him, would rescind his stay of execution without a second thought. Lady Hinata, too, would face consequences he could not predict. But past them lay her only hope of salvation, of a different path that she could not yet see. Some things were worth any sacrifice.

All Neji could do was choose between two ways of betraying Lady Hinata, and the one that saved her would also be the one that cost his life—this time for real. It was obvious which one he would choose.

But before he could commit himself, a single thought flickered across his mind. Was his secret dream any less impossible than hers?

He pondered, but no answers came. 

-o- 

Affinity training was nothing like Naruto had imagined. According to Jiraiya, while chakra paper gave you information, it didn’t give you understanding, and understanding was the difference between some mediocre child with delusions of grandeur (sic) and a promising young man who could in theory aim for jōnin rank one day. Chakra paper was nothing but a shortcut, a tool that had helped Leaf mass-produce frontline genin during a war for the village’s very survival. (Naruto had an uncomfortable flashback to Onigahara Tariki’s words—a valuable reminder that whatever personal happiness he himself might find, it wouldn’t make the real world any less cruel.)

For now, though, Naruto was to experience attuning himself to all five elements. If he wanted to understand Wind, quoth the Perverted One, he also needed to grasp the others. It was no different to how Academy students who weren’t Rock Lee had to study the basics of taijutsu, ranged combat, ninjutsu, stealth and so on before they could call themselves ninja, no matter how much they would specialise afterwards. Fortunately, Shugenja Forest’s main draw was exactly its suitability for this purpose.

Earth had been easy, if boring as heck. He could feel its deep, immeasurable power—probably greater than any of the others—but that power just sat there, doing nothing, and even resisted human efforts to tap into it. He got that the element’s techniques were supposed to be strong and durable in exchange for that higher chakra cost, but if it were up to him, he’d replace it with something more interesting in a flash. (The earth was full of awesome things like magma, and metals, and crystals, and ancient civilisations that had delved too deep, and what did Earth users get? Mud and rocks.)

Lightning they were going to skip for now. Jiraiya was hoping for a decent thunderstorm to give Naruto the full experience, though he had some “unique ideas” for if one didn’t come along (this time, the grin was even more evil). In principle, Naruto was all for the element that would give Earth its well-earned comeuppance, but in practice, he had a very bad feeling.

Water was another element that made him apprehensive. It wasn’t that he had any philosophical objection to Water as he did to Earth. He was a passable swimmer—not everyone could count on getting rescued if they fell into deep water—and while public baths were another institution that had barred him entry until he became a genin, his few experiences there had been both pleasurable and relaxing (let’s pretend that one time never happened).

No, it was more that Water seemed to have an objection to him. From murderous rivers and an endless series of ever deadlier water bullets, to the Demonic Mirrors of Ice Crystals, to pretty much everything about Zabuza, it was a scientific fact that Water was out to get him, and he had no intention of giving it another chance. Unfortunately, Jiraiya refused to consider this phase of training complete until Naruto cleared all the elements one way or another, and yes, it didn’t take a genius to figure out where this was going.

In the meantime, Fire was probably the first time he’d managed to surprise the Perverted One for real. With flint and tinder, Fire was the spark of life and hope. As a campfire, it was empowerment and protection, a loyal if capricious ally in the face of a hostile world—as long as it was treated with respect. Even its final form, which evoked only awe and terror, could sometimes be a bringer of rebirth.

Fire was Wind’s greatest enemy in the circle of elements, he knew, a destructive force against which Wind was powerless, against which any attempt at resistance only made things worse. With enough dedication, it was possible to resolve the inner contradiction and acquire the nemesis of your birth affinity—a ninjutsu specialist jōnin might do it as a means of cancelling out their weakness—but _nobody_ skipped the affinity part and just rewired their soul for the hell of it.

Jiraiya, after resetting his jaw, had thought about it for a while and decided to put it down to Naruto being so contrary it even bent the laws of nature. This might have been the greatest compliment Naruto had ever got.

Naruto knew the simple truth, though. Fire was his friend because it was the enemy of cold. If Fire was life, then cold was death, sapping its victims’ strength until they fell asleep, never to wake up. Even when fire killed people, at least it was honest about it. He’d seen descriptions of the Naraka Path in some of his scarier manga, and there, too, the cold hells were the worst part. The hot hells might be places of constant violence and conflict, but the cold hells were unending solitude, now and forever. Who cared about the physical torture compared to that?

But if Fire was his ally, Wind turned out to be _him_.

Free. Whimsical in behaviour but constant in nature. Taking whatever shape it wanted, for only as long as it wanted. Playful except when it wasn’t. Chaotic and mischievous, but always there for those who needed it. Power overwhelming or a soft caress. Remaining itself despite any attempt at imprisonment or domination.

Every element had its place. Every element had its role. But Wind was just… better.

Wind was free.

Today, Naruto had spent hours on a hilltop facing the south wind, dressed only in his underwear and using chakra adhesion to stay on his feet in the face of a gale that had come as if summoned for that very purpose (not that Naruto would put it past the world’s alleged greatest ninjutsu master). The feeling of his consciousness expanding, of recognising a kinship with an element of the world itself, had been worth enduring the freezing cold… at least for a little while.

Afterwards, Jiraiya (who’d been showing off by sitting on a different hill and calmly penning the draft of his next novel in those same gale-force winds) had taken him out for a hot, revitalising bowl of ramen, and then called it an early night, at least for Naruto. But before he went out to pick up girls, or whatever it was war heroes, expert lovers, bestselling writers, supreme perverts and mighty sages did with their spare time, Jiraiya had a few words for his exhausted temporary apprentice.

“You probably weren’t in any state to listen over dinner, kid, so I’ll say it again. Nice job. Maybe you do have some genuine potential behind that self-satisfied exterior of yours.

“That’s a compliment from Jiraiya of the Three himself, by the way. Remember this moment so you have something to tell your grandkids, assuming Hyūga Hiashi doesn’t have you killed first.”

“Huh.” After another day of serious instructions interspersed with relentless mockery, the last thing Naruto had been expecting was direct praise.

“Thank you,” he said with unfamiliar, rusty sincerity.

Jiraiya gave a grin that for once wasn’t particularly evil. “You get some sleep, kid. You’ll need to be on top form for tomorrow’s training.”

“Hey, Perverted One,” Naruto murmured as he turned over to a more comfortable position in his bed, “what’s the deal with that Jiraiya of the Three business, anyway?

“I’ve heard of the Leaf Three a few times, and you’re supposed to be living legends, not that I’d know it to look at you. But I didn’t know who Tsunade was until some random missing-nin told me, and I still don’t know who the third one is. What’s up with that?”

“The Leaf Three, huh?” Jiraiya said, sitting down on his own bed. “Well, I guess after all that hard work you’ve earned yourself a bedtime story.”

Naruto shifted his pillow a few times until it felt right, and listened.

Jiraiya’s voice took on a slow, nostalgic quality.

“Once upon a time, longer than you’d guess based on my youthful yet manly looks, there were these three kids who ended up on the same genin team. The first was a prankster and buffoon whose craziest ideas kept working against all the odds. The second was the love of his life, a hot-tempered beauty who could split mountains with her bare hands, but chose to become a healer. And the third was a gentle, quietly brilliant boy who understood much and said little. And their teacher was the greatest teacher of all, Sarutobi-sensei, the Professor, the man who would become the Third Hokage.”

The future Third Hokage had taught Jiraiya. Jiraiya had taught the future Fourth. The future Fourth had taught Kakashi-sensei, and now Kakashi-sensei was in the process of teaching the future Fifth (or Sixth, if the Third retired too soon). It was too regular to be natural, Naruto thought absently as he continued to listen.

“They may well have been the best shinobi team in Leaf history,” Jiraiya went on. “Loved by their friends, feared by their foes, and respected even by those who hated them. Somewhere out there, in another world, they might have changed everything and broken the cycle of vengeance and alienation that defines shinobi existence. But in this one, the Second Great Ninja War broke out, and the world changed them instead.

“The kunoichi, Tsunade, lost her family and her hope for the future. The quiet youth, Orochimaru, lost his innocence and his power to love. And the buffoon who’d managed to go for so long without growing up, yours truly, lost the two people he loved most in the world, and learned that he didn’t have the strength, or the smarts, or the wisdom to bring them back.”

Naruto felt a faint sense of sorrow, almost as if the story was his own.

“I—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Don’t be,” Jiraiya said. “It’s ancient history, for all that it’s been cut out of your textbooks.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” he smiled, “I saw a pair of the most gorgeous twins sitting downstairs looking bored, and I wouldn’t be a legendary hero if I failed to come to their rescue. Don’t wait up.”

Naruto obediently gave an enormous yawn.

“And anyway,” he said as Jiraiya turned to leave, “wouldn’t hitting somebody with a stick only make them more distracted—“

“Good _night_ , kid.”

Naruto watched him go, thinking about the gesture of trust he’d just received. Manipulation or honest gift? Educating a student or building a personal bond? Where did you draw the lines, and when did they stop mattering?

But his pillow was comfy, and it had been a very long day, and there’d be plenty of time to angst over his relationship with Jiraiya tomorrow. 

-o-

Sasuke was the best in the clan at kunai throwing. For his age, anyway. They’d let him use real kunai any day now, and then he could prove he was a real ninja, and get accepted into the Academy, and join ANBU and get the Wolf mask and go on missions with Itachi!

He couldn’t wait to tell Itachi that he’d hit all the targets today, even the hanging one that swayed with the wind. But that wasn’t what had him running home like lightning. Tonight, _tonight_ was the night of the Blood Moon, that incredibly rare astro-nomical event that was like a full lunar eclipse but really cool! He could already see it in the sky, enormous, so much bigger than he’d expected, glowing a red that was both exciting and a little scary.

But even the Blood Moon wasn’t the best part. The best part was that Blood Moons were very rare, and it was Sasuke’s birthday (or close enough, anyway), and weeks ago Itachi had promised that, no matter what he had to do that night, he'd finish it all in time to spend the evening alone with _him_! They’d sit and talk together, and Mum had promised to make his favourite dumplings, and he could show off his new kunai skills (he could hit things even in the dark now, as long as they weren’t too far away!), and he had special permission to stay up past his bedtime, and he’d tell Itachi he’d solved all the riddles, and since the moon was so bright maybe they could go and play in one of the ninja training grounds (Itachi was allowed _anywhere_ ) and… and something wasn’t right.

Sasuke slowed down as he passed the gates to the district. Why was it so quiet? Shouldn’t everybody in the clan be out in the streets looking at the amazing red moon?

Maybe they were too boring. Grown-ups did that kind of thing—they were allowed to stay up as late as they liked, and instead they went to bed early because they had work in the morning. Sasuke wasn’t sure he wanted grow up (at least past the age when he could go on missions with Itachi) if that was what it did to you.

The other kids should have been watching, though. That was weird. None of his friends were boring enough to miss the Blood Moon. Well, maybe Shūji, but his little sister would drag him out anyway.

And if everyone _was_ asleep for some weird reason, it was even more too quiet. Where were the earthshaking snores of Uncle Jin, which you could normally hear right across the district? Where were the reassuring, deliberately loud footsteps of the night watch? Where was the yowling of those stupid cats?

Ow!

Sasuke, still looking up at the moon, tripped over something in the middle of the street and found himself on his hands and knees. He managed not to scrape anything, though, because he was almost a real ninja. But who would drop something big in the middle of the street and not pick it up?

Sasuke turned around to look. It took him a second to understand what he was seeing. The shape on the ground was a person, fallen over and not moving. And completely silent, not even making the noises a grown-up did when they were passed out drunk.

Sasuke crawled over to the person in case they turned out to be hurt and he needed to call for help.

“Uncle Jin?” he recognised the man. “Uncle Jin, are you all right?”

In the bright light of the Blood Moon, Sasuke could see liquid around Uncle Jin’s neck, pooling on the ground. It smelled of copper… like blood.

There was another shape under Uncle Jin—Auntie Kanako, his wife. She wasn’t moving either.

Sasuke knew about death. He was the brother of a ninja, after all. But people were only supposed to die on ninja missions, somewhere far away. Or if they were really old, like Granny Oribe when her heart stopped working. Nobody died just because.

There were more shapes in the street up ahead. He ran over to them, hoping, praying.

Auntie Marina, Minako’s mum, still holding the rolling pin people said she could use like a jōnin. Minako herself, the Academy student who babysat Sasuke on Tuesday evenings, and on whom he secretly had a crush.

He couldn’t keep looking. There were more shapes, more _people_ , lying everywhere. Sasuke knew what blood meant. It meant somebody came and killed them all. Was it an army from another village? Was there going to be a war? Were they going to kill Sasuke too?

Sasuke ran home. Everything would be all right when he got home. Mum and Dad would be there. Itachi would be there, and nobody could ever kill Itachi. 

-o- 

It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be real. Ninja could make people see things that weren’t there, right? So there had to be an evil ninja around, using his powers to confuse Sasuke. He repeated that to himself, over and over, trying to make it true.

But deep down, he already knew it wasn’t. That was Mum, and that was Dad, shapes on the floor like everyone else. Death meant they weren’t going to wake up again.

He looked through the open doors into the inner garden. Itachi stood outside, in his ANBU armour, looking up at the Blood Moon as blood dripped off the ninjatō in his right hand. Sasuke felt a rush of hope for the first time.

“Itachi! You’re all right! Did you get them? Did you get the people who did all this?”

But there were tears streaking down Itachi’s face, and for some reason Sasuke knew he wasn’t just sad about Mum and Dad.

“No…” Sasuke whispered. “No…”

It wasn’t possible. It didn’t make sense. This was Itachi. Itachi who didn’t do things wrong. He couldn’t, he _wouldn’t_ have done this.

“ _Why_?”

“Because I wasn’t strong enough,” Itachi said to the Blood Moon.

“I don’t understand.”

Itachi turned to look at Sasuke. “I don’t know if I do either,” he said after a pause.

“Why, Itachi?” Sasuke pleaded. “Why did you have to kill Mum and Dad? Why did you have to kill _everyone_?”

Itachi took a long, slow breath. His next words sounded like he was forcing himself to say them.

“If you wish to know the truth, be strong. Be stronger than I was. You are the Uchiha Clan now.”

“Itachi, please…”

Itachi’s mouth made something that had too much pain in it to be a smile. “Forgive me, Sasuke. Another time.”

He sheathed the ninjatō while it was still wet, which even Sasuke knew was bad for it.

“When you are ready, when you can find me and defeat me, then I will give you the answers you need.”

He went down on one knee until his eyes were level with Sasuke’s. They were not the Sharingan Sasuke knew, but some sort of scary wavy triangle.

“Goodbye, little brother. This is the only gift I can give you.”

 

Sasuke woke up in hospital after a year of coma, a year during which there were no thoughts, nothing but sleep, and a distant sense of the broken pieces of his heart drifting together until it could beat again. He didn’t understand when the doctors told him it had only been a week.

-o- 

“No good,” Sasuke said. “This time I didn’t catch it even when I saw his Sharingan.”

“Let’s take a break,” Kakashi-sensei said. “Putting too much strain on your—”

“Again.”

Sasuke blinked through the tears until he could see Kakashi-sensei’s Sharingan eye clearly. “Do it again. How am I supposed to defeat him if I can’t even beat his memory?”


End file.
